AT 

LOS  ANGELES 
LIBRARY 


THE    TEACHER 

ESSAYS  AND   ADDRESSES 
ON   EDUCATION 

BY 

GEORGE  HERBERT  PALMER 

AND 

ALICE  FREEMAN   PALMER 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

CambriD0e 


COPYRIGHT,    1908,   BY   GEORGE   HERBERT  PALMER 
ALL   RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  November  iqo8 


THIRD   IMPRESSION 


I9O3 


Library 

LB 


PREFACE 

THE  papers  of  this  volume  fall  into  three  groups, 
two  of  the  three  being  written  by  myself.  From  my 
writings  on  education  I  have  selected  only  those 
which  may  have  some  claim  to  permanent  interest, 
and  all  but  two  have  been  tested  by  previous  pub- 
lication. Those  of  the  first  group  deal  with  ques- 
tions about  which  we  teachers,  eager  about  our  im- 
measurable art  beyond  most  professional  persons, 
never  cease  to  wonder  and  debate :  What  is  teaching  ? 
How  far  may  it  influence  character  ?  Can  it  be  prac- 
ticed on  persons  too  busy  or  too  poor  to  come  to  our 
class-rooms  ?  To  subjects  of  what  scope  should  it  be 
applied  ?  And  how  shall  we  content  ourselves  with 
its  necessary  limitations  ?  Under  these  diverse  head- 
ings a  kind  of  philosophy  of  education  is  outlined. 
The  last  two  papers,  having  been  given  as  lectures 
and  stenographically  reported,  I  have  left  in  their 
original  colloquial  form.  A  group  of  papers  on  Har- 
vard follows,  preceded  by  an  explanatory  note,  and 
the  volume  closes  with  a  few  papers  by  Mrs.  Palmer. 
She  and  I  often  talked  of  preparing  together  a  book 
on  education.  Now,  alone,  I  gather  up  these  frag- 
ments. > 


CONTENTS 
i 

PROBLEMS  OF  SCHOOL  AND  COLLEGE 

I.  THE  IDEAL  TEACHER,    . 3 

II.  ETHICAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS  ....    31 

III.  MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS    ....    49 

IV.  SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH 72 

V.  DOUBTS  ABOUT  UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION   .    .  105 

VI.    SPECIALIZATION 123 

VII.    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT      ....  143 

II 

HARVARD  PAPERS 
VIII.   THE  NEW  EDUCATION 173 

IX.    ERRONEOUS  LIMITATIONS  OF  THE  ELECTIVE 

SYSTEM 200 

X.    NECESSARY  LIMITATIONS  OF  THE  ELECTIVE 

SYSTEM 239 

XI.    COLLEGE  EXPENSES 272 

XII.    A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME  .  283 


viii  CONTENTS 

III 

PAPERS  BY  ALICE  FREEMAN  PALMER 

XIII.  THREE  TYPES  OF  WOMEN'S  COLLEGES    .     .313 

XIV.  WOMEN'S  EDUCATION  IN    THE  NINETEENTH 

CENTURY 337 

XV.    WOMEN'S  EDUCATION  AT  THE  WORLD'S  FAIR  351 
XVI.    WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE  .  .  364 


PROBLEMS   OF  SCHOOL  AND   COLLEGE 


-a 

K 


THE  IDEAL  TEACHER 

2.0  32.5 

IN  America,  a  land  of  idealism,  the  profession  of 
teaching  has  become  one  of  the  greatest  of  human 
employments.  In  1903-04  half  a  million  teachers 
were  in  charge  of  sixteen  million  pupils.  Stating  the 
same  facts  differently,  we  may  say  that  a  fifth  of  our 
entire  population  is  constantly  at  school;  and  that 
wherever  one  hundred  and  sixty  men,  women,  and 
children  are  gathered,  a  teacher  is  sure  to  be  among 
them. 

But  figures  fail  to  express  the  importance  of  the 
work.  If  each  year  an  equal  number  of  persons 
should  come  in  contact  with  as  many  lawyers,  no 
such  social  consequences  would  follow.  The  touch/ 
of  the  tpflfh£Ti  like  that  of  no  other  person,  is  forma- 
tive. Our  young  people  are  for  long  periods  asso- 
ciated with  those  who  are  expected  to  fashion  them 
into  men  and  women  of  an  approved  type.  A  charge 
so  influential  is  committed  to  nobody  else  in  the 
community,  not  even  to  the  ministers;  for  though 
these  have  a  more  searching  aim,  they  are  directly 
occupied  with  it  but  one  day  instead  of  six,  but  one 
hour  instead  of  five.  Accordingly,  as  the  tract  of 


4  THE  IDEAL  TEACHER 

knowledge  has  widened,  and  the  creative  opportu- 
nities involved  in  conducting  a  young  person  over 
it  have  correspondingly  become  apparent,  the   pro- 
/  fession  of  teaching  has  risen  to  a  notable  height  of 
dignity  and  attractiveness.  It  has  moved  from  a  sub- 
ordinate to  a  .central  place  in  social  influence,  and 
/now  undertakes  much  of  the  work  which  formerly 
V  fell  to  the  church.  Each  year  divinity  schools  attract 
fewer  students,  graduate  and  normal  schools  more. 
On  school  and  college  instruction  the  community 
now  bestows  its  choicest  minds,  its  highest  hopes, 
and  its    largest  sums.     During  the  year   1903-04 
the  United  States  spent  for  teaching  not  less  than 
$350,000,000. 

Such  weighty  work  is  ill  adapted  for  amateurs. 
Those  who  take  it  up  for  brief  times  and  to  make 
money  usually  find  it  unsatisfactory.  Success  is 
rare,  the  hours  are  fixed  and  long,  there  is  repe- 
tition and  monotony,  and  the  teacher  passes  his 
days  among  inferiors.  Nor  are  the  pecuniary  gains 
considerable.  There  are  few  prizes,  and  neither  in 
school  nor  in  college  will  a  teacher's  ordinary  in- 
come carry  him  much  above  want.  College  teach- 
ing is  falling  more  and  more  into  the  hands  of 
men  of  independent  means.  The  poor  can  hardly 
afford  to  engage  in  it.  Private  schools,  it  is  true, 
often  show  large  incomes;  but  they  are  earned  by 
the  proprietors,  not  the  teachers.  On  the  whole, 


THE  IDEAL  TEACHER  5 

teaching    as    a    trade    is    poor    and    disappointing    Js, 
business. 

When,  however,  it  is  entered  as  a  profession,  as 
a  serious  and  difficult  fine  art,  there  are  few  employ- 
ments more  satisfy  ing.  "7f  11  over  the  country  thousands 
of  men  and  women  are  following  it  with  a  passion- 
ate devotion  which  takes  little  account  of  the  income 
received.  A  trade  aims  primarily  at  personal  gain  j 
a  profession  at  the  exercise  of  powers  beneficial  t^ 
mankind.  This  prime  aim  of  the  one,  it  is  true, 
often  properly  becomes  a  subordinate  aim  of  the 
other.  Professional  men  may  even  be  said  to  offer 
wares  of  their  own  —  cures,  conversions,  court  vic- 
tories, learning  —  much  as  traders  do,  and  to  receive 
in  return  a  kind  of  reward.  But  the  business  of  the 
lawyer,  doctor,  preacher,  and  teacher  never  squares 
itself  by  equivalent  exchange.  These  men  do  not  give 
so  much  for  so  much.  They  give  in  lump  and  they 
get  in  lump,  without  precise  balance.  The  whole 
notion  of  bargain  is  inapplicable  in  a  sphere  where  the 
gains  of  him  who  serves  and  him  who  is  served  coin- 
cide ;  and  that  is  largely  the  case  with  the  professions. 
Each  of  them  furnishes  its  special  opportunity  for 
the  use  of  powers  which  the  possessor  takes  delight 
in  exercising.  Harvard  College  pays  me  for  doing 
what  I  would  gladly  pay  it  for  allowing  me  to  do. 
No  professional  man,  then,  thinks  of  giving  accord- 
ing to  measure.  Once  engaged,, he  gives  his  best, 


6>  THE  IDEAL  TEACHER 

gives  his  personal  interest,  himself.  His  heart  is  in 
his  work,  and  for  this  no  equivalent  is  possible ;  what 
is  accepted  is  in  the  nature  of  a  fee,  gratuity,  or  con- 
sideration, which  enables  him  who  receives  it  to 
maintain  a  certain  expected  mode  of  life.  The  real 
v/ payment  is  the  work  itself,  this  and  the  chance  to 
join  with  other  members  of  the  profession  in  guid- 
ing and  enlarging  the  sphere  of  its  activities. 

The  idea,  sometimes  advanced,  that  the  profes- 
sions might  be  ennobled  by  paying  them  powerfully, 
is  fantastic.  Their  great  attraction  is  their  removal 
from  sordid  aims.  More  money  should  certainly 
be  spent  on  several  of  them.  Their  members  should 
be  better  protected  against  want,  anxiety,  neglect, 
and  bad  conditions  of  labor.  To  do  his  best  work  one 
needs  not  merely  to  live,  but  to  live  well.  Yet  in  that 
increase  of  salaries  which  is  urgently  needed,  care 
should  be  used  not  to  allow  the  attention  of  the  pro- 
fessional man  to  be  diverted  from  what  is  impor- 
tant, —  the  outgo  of  his  work,  —  and  become  fixed 
on  what  is  merely  incidental,  —  his  income.  When 
a  professor  in  one  of  our  large  universities,  angered 
by  the  refusal  of  the  president  to  raise  his  salary  on 
his  being  called  elsewhere,  impatiently  exclaimed, 
"  Mr.  President,  you  are  banking  on  the  devotion  of 
us  teachers,  knowing  that  we  do  not  willingly  leave 
this  place,"  the  president  properly  replied,  "Cer- 
tainly, and  no  college  can  be  managed  on  any  other 


THE  IDEAL  TEACHER  7 

/ 

principle."    Professional  men  are  not  so  silly  as  to 

despise  money;  but  after  all,  it  is  interest  in  their 
work,  and  not  the  thought  of  salary,  which  predomi- 
nantly holds  them. 

Accordingly  in  this  paper  I  address  those  only 
who  are  drawn  to  teaching  by  the  love  of  it,  who  re- 
gard it  as  the  most  vital  of  the  Fine  Arts,  who  intend 
to  give  their  lives  to  mastering  its  subtleties,  and 
who  are  ready  to  meet  some  hardships  and  to  put 
up  with  moderate  fare  if  they  may  win  its  rich  op- 
portunities. 

But  supposing  such  a  temper,  what  special  quali- 
fications will  the  work  require  ?  The  question  asked 
thus  broadly  admits  no  precise  answer ;  for  in  reality 
there  is  no  human  excellence  which  is  not  useful  for 
us  teachers.  No  good  quality  can  be  thought  of 
which  we  can  afford  to  drop.  Some  day  we  shall 
discover  a  disturbing  vacuum  in  the  spot  which  it 
left.  But  I  propose  a  more  limited  problem:  what 
are  those  characteristics  of  the  teacher  without  which 
he  must  fail,  and  what  those  which,  once  his,  will 
almost  certainly  insure  him  success  ?  Are  there  any 
such  essentials,  and^ow  many?  On  this  matter  I 
have  pondered  long;  for,  teaching  thirty-nine  years 
in  Harvard  College,  I  have  each  year  found  out  a 
little  more  fully  my  own  incompetence.  I  have  thus 
been  forced  to  ask  myself  the  double  question, 
through  what  lacks  do  I  fail,  and  in  what  direction 


8  THE  IDEAL  TEACHER 

lie  the  roots  of  my  small  successes  ?  Of  late  years 
I  think  I  have  hit  on  these  roots  of  success  and 
have  come  to  believe  that  there  are  four  of  them, 
—  four  characteristics  which  every  teacher  must 
possess.  Of  course  he  may  possess  as  many  more 
as  he  likes,  —  indeed,  the  more  the  better.  But 
these  four  appear  fundamental.  I  will  briefly  name 
them. 

First,  a  teacher  must  have  an  aptitude,  f or  vica- 
riousnessj  and  second,  an  already  accumulated 
wealth ;  and  third,  an  ability  to  invigorate  life  through 
knowledge;  and  fourth,  a  readiness  to  be  forgotten.. 
Having  these,  any  teacher  is  secure.  Lacking  them, 
lacking  even  one,  he  is  liable  to  serious  failure.  But 
as  here  stated  they  have  a  curiously  cabalistic  sound 
and  show  little  relation  to  the  needs  of  any  profession. 
They  have  been  stated  with  too  much  condensation, 
and  have  become  unintelligible  through  being  too 
exact.  Let  me  repair  the  error  by  successively  ex- 
panding them. 

/  The  teacher's  art  takes  its  rise  in  what  I  call  an 
aptitude  for  vicariousness.  As  year  by  year  my  col- 
lege boys  prepare  to  go  forth  into  life,  some  laggard 
is  sure  to  come  to  me  and  say,  "I  want  a  little  advice. 
Most  of  my  classmates  have  their  minds  made  up 
about  what  they  are  going  to  do.  I  am  still  uncer- 
tain. I  rather  incline  to  be  a  teacher,  because  I  am 
fond  of  books  and  suspect  that  in  any  other  profession 


THE  IDEAL  TEACHER  9 

I  can  give  them  but  little  time.  Business  men  do  not 
read.  Lawyers  only  consult  books.  And  I  am  by 
no  means  sure  that  ministers  have  read  all  the  books 
they  quote.  On  the  whole  it  seems  safest  to  choose 
a  profession  in  which  books  will  be  my  daily  com- 
panions. So  I  turn  toward  teaching.  But  before 
settling  the  matter  I  thought  I  would  ask  how  you 
regard  the  profession."  "A  noble  profession,"  I 
answer, "but  quite  unfit  for  you.  I  would  advise  you 
to  become  a  lawyer,  a  car  conductor,  or  something 
equally  harmless.  Do  not  turn  to  anything  so  peril- 
ous as  teaching.  You  would  ruin  both  it  and  your- 
self; for  you  are  looking  in  exactly  the  wrong 
direction." 

Such  an  inquirer  is  under  a  common  misconcep- 
tion. The  teacher's  task  is  not  primarily  the  acqui- 
sition of  knowledge,  but  the  impartation  of  it,  —  an 
entirely  different  matter.  We  teachers  are  forever 
taking  thoughts  out  of  our  minds  and  putting  them 
elsewhere.  So  long  as  we  are  content  to  keep  them 
in  our  possession,  we  are  not  teachers  at  all.  One 
who  is  interested  in  laying  hold  on  wisdom  is  likely 
to  become  a  scholar.  And  while  no  doubt  it  is  well 
for  a  teacher  to  be  a  fair  scholar,  — r  I  have  known 
several  such,  —  that  is  not  the  main  thing.  What  con- 
stitutes the  teacher  is  the  passion  to  make  scholars ; 
and  again  and  again  it  happens  that  the  great  scholar  , 
has  no  such  passion  whatever. 


10  THE  IDEAL  TEACHER 

But  even  that  passion  is  useless  without  aid  from 
imagination.  At  every  instant  of  the  teacher's  life 
he  must  be  controlled  by  this  mighty  power.  Most 
human  beings  are  contented  with  living  one  life 
and  delighted  if  they  can  pass  that  agreeably.  But 
this  is  far  from  enough  for  us  teachers.  We  inces- 
santly go  outside  ourselves  and  enter  into  the  many 
lives  about  us,  —  lives  dull,  dark,  and  unintelligible 
to  any  but  an  eye  like  ours.  And  this  is  imagination, 
the  sympathetic  creation  in  ourselves  of  conditions 
which  belong  to  others.  Our  profession  is  therefore 
a  double-ended  one.  We  inspect  truth  as  it  rises  fresh 
and  interesting  before  our  eager  sight.  But  that  is 
only  the  beginning  of  our  task.  Swiftly  we  then 
seize  the  lines  of  least  intellectual  resistance  in  alien 
minds  and,  with  perpetual  reference  to  these,  fol- 
low our  truth  till  it  is  safely  lodged  beyond  ourselves. 
Each  mind  has  its  peculiar  set  of  frictions.  Those 
of  our  pupils  can  never  be  the  same  as  ours.  We 
have  passed  far  on  and  know  all  about  our  subject. 
For  us  it  wears  an  altogether  different  look  from  that 
which  it  has  for  beginners.  It  is  their  perplexities 
which  we  must  reproduce  and  —  as  if  a  rose  should 
shut  and  be  a  bud  again  —  we  must  reassume  in  our 
developed  and  accustomed  souls  something  of  the 
innocence  of  childhood.^  Such  is  the  exquisite  busi- 
ness of  the  teacher,  to  carry  himself  back  with  all  his 
wealth  of  knowledge  and  understand  how  his  sub- 


THE  IDEAL  TEACHER  11 

ject  should  appear  to  the  meagre  mind  of  one  glanc- 
ing at  it  for  the  first  time.  < 

And  what  absurd  blunders  we  make  in  the  process ! 
Becoming  immersed  in  our  own  side  of  the  affair, 
we  blind  ourselves  and  readily  attribute  to  our  pupils 
modes  of  thought  which  are  not  in  the  least  theirs. 
I  remember  a  lesson  I  had  on  this  point,  I  who  had 
been  teaching  ethics  half  a  lifetime.  My  nephew, 
five  years  old,  was  fond  of  stories  from  the  Odyssey. 
He  would  creep  into  bed  with  me  in  the  morning  and 
beg  for  them.  One  Sunday,  after  I  had  given  him 
a  pretty  stiff  bit  of  adventure,  it  occurred  to  me  that 
it  was  an  appropriate  day  for  a  moral.  "Ulysses 
was  a  very  brave  man,"  I  remarked.  "  Yes,"  he  said, 
"and  I  am  very  brave."  I  saw  my  opportunity  and 
seized  it.  "That  is  true,"  said  I.  "You  have  been 
gaining  courage  lately.  You  used  to  cry  easily,  but 
you  don't  do  that  nowadays.  When  you  want  to  cry 
now,  you  think  how  like  a  baby  it  would  be  to  cry, 
or  how  you  would  disturb  mother  and  upset  the 
house;  and  so  you  conclude  not  to  cry."  The  little 
fellow  seemed  hopelessly  puzzled.  He  lay  silent  a 
minute  or  two  and  then  said,  "Well  no,  Uncle,  I 
don't  do  that.  I  just  go  sh-sh-sh,  and  I  don't." 
There  the  moral  crisis  is  stated  in  its  simplicity; 
and  I  had  been  putting  off  on  that  holy  little  nature 
sophistications  borrowed  from  my  own  battered  life. 

But  while  I  am  explaining  the  blunders  caused  by 


12  THE  IDEAL  TEACHER 

self-engrossment  and  lack  of  imagination,  let  me 
show  what  slight  adjustments  will  sometimes  carry 
us  past  depressing  difficulties.  One  year  when  I  was 
lecturing  on  some  intricate  problems  of  obligation, 
I  began  to  doubt  whether  my  class  was  following 
me,  and  I  determined  that  I  would  make  them  talk. 
So  the  next  day  I  constructed  an  ingenious  ethical 
case  and,  after  stating  it  to  the  class,  I  said,  "Sup- 
posing now  the  state  of  affairs  were  thus  and  thus, 
and  the  interests  of  the  persons  involved  were  such 
and  such,  how  would  you  decide  the  question  of  right, 
—  Mr.  Jones."  Poor  Jones  rose  in  confusion.  "You 
mean,"  he  said,  "if  the  case  were  as  you  have  stated 
it?  Well,  hm,  hm,  hm, — yes,  —  I  don't  think  I  know, 
sir."  And  he  sat  down.  I  called  on  one  and  another 
with  the  same  result.  A  panic  was  upon  them,  and 
all  their  minds  were  alike  empty.  I  went  home  dis- 
gusted, wondering  whether  they  had  comprehended 
anything  I  had  said  during  the  previous  fortnight, 
and  hoping  I  might  never  have  such  a  stupid  lot  of 
students  again*  Suddenly  it  flashed  upon  me  that  it 
-was  I  who  was  stupid.  That  is  usually  the  case  when 
v  a  class  fails ;  it  is  the  teacher's  fault.  The  next  day 
I  went  back  prepared  to  begin  at  the  right  end.  I 
began,  "Oh,  Mr.  Jones."  He  rose,  and  I  proceeded 
to  state  the  situation  as  before.  By  the  time  I  paused 
he  had  collected  his  wits,  had  worked  off  his  super- 
fluous flurry,  and  was  ready  to  give  me  an  admirable 


THE  IDEAL  TEACHER  13 

answer.  Indeed  in  a  few  minutes  the  whole  class  was 
engaged  in  an  eager  discussion.  My  previous  error 
had  been  in  not  remembering  that  they,  I,  and  every- 
body, when  suddenly  attacked  with  a  big  question, 
are  not  in  the  best  condition  for  answering.  Occupied 
as  I  was  with  my  end  of  the  story,  the  questioning 
end,  I  had  not  worked  in  that  double-ended  fashion 
which  alone  can  bring  the  teacher  success ;  in  short, 
I  was  deficient  in  vicariousness,  -/in  swiftly  put- 
ting myself  in  the  weak  one's  place  and  bearing  his 
burden.  / 

Now  it  is  in  this  chief  business  of  the  artistic 
teacher,  to  labor  imaginatively  himself  in  order  to 
diminish  the  labors  of  his  slender  pupil,  that  most 
of  our  failures  occur.  Instead  of  lamenting  the  im- 
perviousness  of  our  pupils,  we  had  better  ask  our- 
selves more  frequently  whether  we  have  neatly  ad- 
justed our  teachings  to  the  conditions  of  their  minds. 
We  have  no  right  to  tumble  out  in  a  mass  whatever 
comes  into  our  heads,  leaving  to  that  feeble  folk  the 
work  of  finding  in  it  what  order  they  may.  Ours 
it  should  be  to  see  that  every  beginning,  middle,  and 
end  of  what  we  say  is  helpfully  shaped  for  readiest 
access  to  those  less  intelligent  and  interested  than  we. 
But  this  is  vicariousness.  Noblesse  oblige.  In  this 
profession  any  one  who  will  be  great  must  be  a 
nimble  servant,  his  head  full  of  others'  needs. 

Some  discouraged  teacher,  glad  to  discover  that 


14  THE  IDEAL  TEACHER 

his  past  failures  have  been  due  to  the  absence  of 
sympathetic  imagination,  may  resolve  that  he  will 
not  commit  that  blunder  again.  On  going  to  his 
class  to-morrow  he  will  look  out  upon  his  subject 
with  his  pupils'  eyes,  not  with  his  own.  Let  him  at- 
tempt it,  and  his  pupils  will  surely  say  to  one  another, 
"What  is  the  matter  to-day  with  teacher?"  They 
will  get  nothing  from  that  exercise.  No,  what  is 
wanted  is  not  a  resolve,  but  an  aptitude.  The  time 
for  using  vicariousness  is  not  the  time  for  acquiring 
it.  Rather  it  is  the  time  for  dismissing  all  thoughts 
of  it  from  the  mind.  On  entering  the  classroom  we 
should  leave  every  consideration  of  method  outside 
the  door,  and  talk  simply  as  interested  men  and 
women  in  whatever  way  comes  most  natural  to  us. 
But  into  that  nature  vicariousness  should  long  ago 
have  been  wrought.  It  should  be  already  on  hand. 
Fortunate  we  if  our  great-grandmother  supplied  us 
with  it  before  we  were  born.  There  are  persons 
who,  with  all  good  will,  can  never  be  teachers.  They 
are  not  made  in  that  way.  Their  business  it  is  to 
pry  into  knowledge,  to  engage  in  action,  to  make 
money,  or  to  pursue  whatever  other  aim  their  powers 
dictate;  but  they  do  not  readily  think  in  terms  of 
the  other  person.  They  should  not,  then,  be  teach- 
ers. 

The  teacher's  habit  is  well  summed  in  the  Apos- 
tle's rule,  "  Look  not  every  man  on  his  own  things, 


THE  IDEAL  TEACHER  15 

but  every  man  also  "  —  it  is  double  —  "  on  the  things 
of  others."  And  this  habit  should  become  as  nearly 
as  possible  an  instinct.  Until  it  is  rendered  in- 
stinctive and  passes  beyond  conscious  direction,  it 
will  be  of  little  worth.  Let  us  then,  as  we  go  into 
society,  as  we  walk  the  streets,  as  we  sit  at  table, 
practice  altruistic  limberness  and  learn  to  escape 
from  ourselves.  A  true  teacher  is  always  meditating 
his  work,  disciplining  himself  for  his  profession, 
probing  the  problems  of  his  glorious  art,  and  seeing 
illustration  of  them  everywhere.  In  only  one  place 
is  he  freed  from  such  criticism,  and  that  is  in  his 
classroom.  Here  in  the  moment  of  action  he  lets 
himself  go,  unhampered  by  theory,  using  the  nature 
acquired  elsewhere,  and  uttering  as  simply  as  pos- 
sible the  fulness  of  his  mind  and  heart.  Direct  human 
intercourse  requires  instinctive  aptitudes.  Till  al- 
truistic vicariousness  has  become  our  second  nature, 
we  shall  not  deeply  influence  anybody. 

But  sympathetic  imagination  is  not  all  a  teacher 
needs.  Exclusive  altruism  is  absurd.  On  this  point 
too  I  once  got  instruction  from  the  mouths  of  babes 
and  sucklings.  The  children  of  a  friend  of  mine, 
children  of  six  and  four,  had  just  gone  to  bed.  Their 
mother  overheard  them  talking  when  they  should 
have  been  asleep.  Wondering  what  they  might  need, 
she  stepped  into  the  entry  and  listened.  They  were 
discussing  what  they  were  here  in  the  world  for. 


16  THE  IDEAL  TEACHER 

That  is  about  the  size  of  problems  commonly  found 
in  infant  minds.  The  little  girl  suggested  that  we  are 
probably  in  the  world  to  help  others.  "Why,  no 
indeed, Mabel,"  said  her  big  brother, "for  then  what 
would  others  be  here  for?"  Precisely!  If  anything 
is  only  fit  to  give  away,  it  is  not  fit  for  that.  We  must 
know  and  prize  its  goodness  in  ourselves  before 
generosity  is  even  possible. 

Plainly,  then,  beside  his  aptitude  for  vicariousness, 
our  ideal  teacher  will  need  the  second  qualification 
of  an  already  .accumulated  wealth.  These  hungry 
pupils  are  drawing  all  their  nourishment  from  us, 
and  have  we  got  it  to  give  ?  They  will  be  poor,  if  we 
are  poor ;  rich  if  we  are  wealthy.  We  are  their  source 
of  supply.  Every  time  we  cut  ourselves  off  from 
nutrition,  we  enfeeble  them.  And  how  frequently 
devoted  teachers  make  this  mistake!  dedicating 
themselves  so  to  the  immediate  needs  of  those  about 
them  that  they  themselves  grow  thinner  each  year. 
We  all  know  the  "teacher's  face."  It  is  meagre, 
worn,  sacrificial,  anxious,  powerless.  That  is  exactly 
the  opposite  of  what  it  should  be.  The  teacher  should 
be  the  big  bounteous  being  of  the  community.  Other 
people  may  get  along  tolerably  by  holding  whatever 
small  knowledge  comes  their  way.  A  moderate  stock 
will  pretty  well  serve  their  private  turn.  But  that  is 
not  our  case.  Supplying  a  multitude,  we  need  wealth 
sufficient  for  a  multitude.  We  should  then  be  clutch- 


THE  IDEAL  TEACHER  17 

ing  at  knowledge  on  every  side.  Nothing  must  es- 
cape us.  It  is  a  mistake  to  reject  a  bit  of  truth  because 
it  lies  outside  our  province.  Some  day  we  shall  need' 
it.  All  knowledge  is  our  province. 

In  preparing  a  lecture  I  find  I  always  have  to 
work  hardest  on  the  things  I  do  not  say.  The  things 
I  am  sure  to  say  I  can  easily  get  up.  They  are 
obvious  and  generally  accessible.  But  they,  I  find, 
are  not  enough.  I  must  have  a  broad  background 
of  knowledge  which  does  not  appear  in  speech.  I 
have  to  go  over  my  entire  subject  and  see  how  the 
things  I  am  to  say  look  in  their  various  relations, 
tracing  out  connections  which  I  shall  not  present 
to  my  class.  One  might  ask  what  is  the  use  of  this  ? 
Why  prepare  more  matter  than  can  be  used  ?  Every 
successful  teacher  knows.  I  cannot  teach  right  up 
to  the  edge  of  my  knowledge  without  a  fear  of  falling 
off.  My  pupils  discover  this  fear,  and  my  words 
are  ineffective.  They  feel  the  influence  of  what  I 
do  not  say.  One  cannot  precisely  explain  it;  but 
when  I  move  freely  across  my  subject  as  if  it  mat- 
tered little  on  what  part  of  it  I  rest,  they  get  a  sense 
of  assured  power  which- is  compulsive  and  fructify- 
ing. The  subject  acquires  consequence,  their  minds 
swell,  and  they  are  eager  to  enter  regions  of  which 
they  had  not  previously  thought. 

Even,  then,  to  teach  a  small  thing  well  we  must 
be  large.  I  asked  a  teacher  what  her  subject  was, 


18  THE  IDEAL  TEACHER 

and  she  answered,  "Arithmetic  in  the  third  grade." 
But  where  is  the  third  grade  found  ?  In  knowledge, 
or  in  the  schools?  Unhappily  it  is  in  the  schools. 
But  if  one  would  be  a  teacher  of  arithmetic,  it  must 
be  arithmetic  she  teaches  and  not  third  grade  at  all. 
We  cannot  accept  these  artificial  bounds  without 
damage.  Instead  of  accumulated  wealth  they  will 
bring  us  accumulated  poverty,  and  increase  it  every 
day.  Years  ago  at  Harvard  we  began  to  discuss  the 
establishment  of  a  Graduate  School ;  and  I,  a  young 
instructor,  steadily  voted  against  it.  My  thought  was 
this:  Harvard  College,  in  spite  of  what  the  pub- 
lic imagines,  is  a  place  of  slender  resources.  Our 
means  are  inadequate  for  teaching  even  under- 
graduates? But  graduate  instruction  is  vastly  more 
expensive ;  courses  composed  of  half  a  dozen  students 
take  the  time  of  the  ablest  professors.  I  thought 
we  could  not  afford  this.  Why  not  leave  graduate 
instruction  to  a  university  which  gives  itself  entirely 
to  that  task  ?  Would  it  not  be  wiser  to  spend  ourselves 
on  the  lower  ranges  of  learning,  covering  these  ade- 
quately, than  to  try  to  spread  ourselves  over  the  en- 
tire field  ? 

Doubting  so,  I  for  some  time  opposed  the  coming 
of  a  Graduate  School.  But  a  luminous  remark  of 
our  great  President  showed  me  the  error  of  my 
ways.  In  the  course  of  debate  he  said  one  even- 
ing, "It  is  not  primarily  for  the  graduates  that 


THE  IDEAL  TEACHER  19 

I  care  for  this  school ;  it  is  for  the  undergraduates. 
We  shall  never  get  good  teaching  here  so  long  as  our 
instructors  set  a  limit  to  their  subjects.  When  they 
are  called  on  to  follow  these  throughout,  tracing 
them  far  off  toward  the  unknown,  they  may  become 
good  teachers;  but  not  before." 

I  went  home  meditating.  I  saw  that  the  President 
was  right,  and  that  I  was  myself  in  danger  of  the 
stagnation  he  deprecated.  I  changed  my  vote,  as 
did  others.  The  Graduate  School  was  established; 
and  of  all  the  influences  which  have  contributed  to 
raise  the  standard  of  scholarship  at  Harvard,  both 
for  teachers  and  taught,  that  graduate  work  seems 
to  me  the  greatest.  Every  professor  now  must  be 
the  master  of  a  field  of  knowledge,  and  not  of  a  few 
paths  running  through  it. 

But  the  ideal  teacher  will  accumulate  wealth, 
not  merely  for  his  pupils'  sake,  but  for  his  own. 
To  be  a  great  teacher  one  must  be  a  great  personality, 
and  without  ardent  and  individual  tastes  the  roots 
of  our  being  are  not  fed.  For  developing  personal 
power  it  is  well,  therefore,  for  each  teacher  to  culti- 
vate interests,  unconnected  with  his  official  work.  Let 
the  mathematician  turn  to  the  English  poets,  the 
teacher  of  classics  to  the  study  of  birds  and  flowers, 
and  each  will  gain  a  lightness,  a  freedom  from 
exhaustion,  a  mental  hospitality,  which  can  only 
be  acquired  in  some  disinterested  pursuit.  Such  a 


20  THE  IDEAL  TEACHER 

private  subject  becomes  doubly  dear  because  it  is 
just  our  own.  We  pursue  it  as  we  will ;  we  let  it  call 
out  our  irresponsible  thoughts ;  and  from  it  we  ordi- 
narily carry  off  a  note  of  distinction  lacking  in  those 
whose  lives  are  too  tightly  organized. 

To  this  second  qualification  of  the  teacher,  how- 
ever, I  have  been  obliged  to  prefix  a  condition  simi- 
lar to  that  which  was  added  to  the  first.  We  need  not 
merely  wealth,  but  an  already  accumulated  wealth. 
At  the  moment  when  wealth  is  wanted  it  cannot  be 
acquired.  It  should  have  been  gathered  and  stored 
before  the  occasion  arose.  What  is  more  pitiable 
than  when  a  person  who  desires  to  be  a  benefactor 
looks  in  his  chest  and  finds  it  empty  ?  Special  know- 
ledge is  wanted,  or  trained  insight,  or  professional 
skill,  or  sound  practical  judgment;  and  the  teacher 
who  is  called  on  has  gone  through  no  such  discipline 
as  assures  these  resources.  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  women  are  more  liable  to  this  sort  of  bankruptcy 
than  men.  Their  sex  is  more  sympathetic  than  ours 
and  they  spend  more  hastily.  They  will  drop  what 
they  are  doing  and  run  if  a  baby  cries.  Excellence 
requires  a  certain  hardihood  of  heart,  while  quick 
responsiveness  is  destructive  of  the  larger  giving. 
He  who  would  be  greatly  generous  must  train  him- 
self long  and  tenaciously,  without  much  attention 
to  momentary  calls.  The  plan  of  the  Great  Teacher, 
by  which  he  took  thirty  years  for  acquisition  and 


THE  IDEAL  TEACHER  21 

three  for  bestowal,  is  not  unwise,  provided  that  we 
too  can  say,  "  For  their  sakes  I  sanctify  myself." 

But  the  two  qualifications  of  the  teacher  already 
named  will  not  alone  suffice.  I  have  known  persons 
who  were  sympathetically  imaginative,  and  who 
could  not  be  denied  to  possess  large  intellectual 
wealth,  who  still  failed  as  teachers.  One  needs  a  third 
something,  the  power  to  invigorate  life  through  learn- 
ing. We  do  not  always  notice  how  knowledge  nat- 
urally buffets.  It  is  offensive  stuff,  and  makes  young 
and  wholesome  minds  rebel.  And  well  it  may;  for 
when  we  learn  anything,  we  are  obliged  to  break  up 
the  world,  inspect  it  piecemeal,  and  let  our  minds 
seize  it  bit  by  bit.  Now  about  a  fragment  there  is 
always  something  repulsive.  Any  one  who  is  nor- 
mally constituted  must  draw  back  in  horror,  feeling 
that  what  is  brought  him  has  little  to  do  with  the 
beautiful  world  he  has  known.  Where  was  there 
ever  a  healthy  child  who  did  not  hate  the  multipli- 
cation table?  A  boy  who  did  not  detest  such  ab- 
stractions as  seven  times  eight  would  hardly  be  worth 
educating.  By  no  ingenuity  can  We  relieve  knowledge 
of  this  unfortunate  peculiarity.  It  must  be  taken  in 
disjointed  portions.  That  is  the  way  attention  is 
made.  In  consequence  each  of  us  must  be  to  some 
extent  a  specialist,  devoting  himself  to  certain  sides 
of  the  world  and  neglecting  others  quite  as  important. 
These  are  the  conditions  under  which  we  imperfect 


22  THE  IDEAL  TEACHER 

• 

creatures  work.  Our  sight  is  not  world-wide.  When 
we  give  our  attention  to  one  object,  by  that  very 
act  we  withdraw  it  from  others.  In  this  way  our 
children  must  learn  and  have  their  expansive  natures 
subdued  to  pedagogic  exigencies. 

Because  this  belittlement  through  the  method  of 
approach  is  inevitable,  it  is  all-important  that  the 
teacher  should  possess  a  supplemental  dignity,  re- 
placing the  oppressive  sense  of  pettiness  with  stimu- 
lating intimations  of  high  things  in  store.  Partly 
on  this  account  a  book  is  an  imperfect  instructor. 
Truth  there,  being  impersonal,  seems  untrue,  ab- 
stract, and  insignificant.  It  needs  to  shine  through 
a  human  being  before  it  can  exert  its  vital  force  on  a 
young  student.  Quite  as  much  for  vital  transmission 
as  for  intellectual  elucidation,  is  a  teacher  employed. 
His  consolidated  character  exhibits  the  gains  which 
come  from  study.  He  need  not  point  them  out.  If 
he  is  a  scholar,  there  will  appear  in  him  an  august- 
ness,  accuracy,  fulness  of  knowledge,  a  buoyant 
enthusiasm  even  in  drudgery,  and  an  unshakable 
confidence  that  others  must  soon  see  and  enjoy  what 
has  enriched  himself;  and  all  this  will  quickly  con- 
vey itself  to  his  students  and  create  attention  in  his 
classroom.  Such  kindling  of  interest  is  the  great 
/  function  of  the  teacher.  People  sometimes  say,  "I 
should  like  to  teach  if  only  pupils  cared  to  learn." 
But  then  there  would  be  little  need  of  teaching. 


THE  IDEAL  TEACHER  23 

Boys  who  have  made  up  their  minds  that  knowledge 
is  worth  while  are  pretty  sure  to  get  it,  without  regard 
to  teachers.  Our  chief  concern  is  with  those  who  are 
unawakened.  In  the  Sistine  Chapel  Michael  Angelo 
has  depicted  the  Almighty  moving  in  clouds  over 
the  rugged  earth  where  lies  the  newly  created  Adam, 
hardly  aware  of  himself.  The  tips  of  the  fingers 
touch,  the  Lord's  and  Adam's,  and  the  huge  frame 
loses  its  inertness  and  rears  itself  into  action.  Such 
may  be  the  electrifying  touch  of  the  teacher. 

But  it  must  be  confessed  that  not  infrequently, 
instead  of  invigorating  life  through  knowledge,  we 
teachers  reduce  our  classes  to  complete  passivity. 
The  blunder  is  not  altogether  ours,  but  is  suggested 
by  certain  characteristics  of  knowledge  itself:  for 
how  can  a  learner  begin  without  submitting  his 
mind,  accepting  facts,  listening  to  authority,  in 
short  becoming  obedient?  He  is  called  on  to  put 
aside  his  own  notions  and  take  what  truth  dictates. 
I  have  said  that  knowledge  buffets,  forcing  us  into 
an  almost  slavish  attitude,  and  that  this  is  resented 
by  vigorous  natures.  In  almost  every  school  some 
of  the  most  original,  aggressive,  and  independent 
boys  stand  low  in  their  classes,  while  at  the  top 
stand  "grinds,"  —  objects  of  horror  to  all  healthy 
souls. 

Now  it  is  the  teacher's  business  to  see  that  the  on- 
slaught of  knowledge  does  not  enfeeble.  Between  the 


24  THE  IDEAL  TEACHER 

two  sides  of  knowledge,  information  and  intelligence, 
he  is  to  keep  the  balance  true.  While  a  boy  is  taking 
in  facts,  facts  not  allowed  to  be  twisted  by  any  fancy 
or  carelessness,  he  is  all  the  time  to  be  made  to 
feel  that  these  facts  offer  him  a  field  for  critical 
and  constructive  action.  If  they  leave  him  inactive, 
docile,  and  plodding,  there  is  something  wrong  with 
the  teaching.  Facts  are  pernicious  when  they  subju- 
gate and  do  not  quicken  the  mind  that  grasps  them. 
Education  should  unfold  us  and  truth  together ;  and 
to  enable  it  to  do  so  the  learner  must  never  be  allowed 
to  sink  into  a  mere  recipient.  He  should  be  called 
on  to  think,  to  observe,  to  form  his  own  judgments, 
even  at  the  risk  of  error  and  crudity.  Temporary 
one-sidedness  and  extravagance  is  not  too  high  a 
price  to  pay  for  originality.  And  this  development 
of  personal  vigor,  emphasized  in  our  day  by  the  elec- 
tive system  and  independent  research,  is  the  great 
aim  of  education.  It  should  affect  the  lower  ranges 
of  study  as  truly  as  the  higher.  The  mere  contempla- 
tion of  truth  is  always  a  deadening  affair.  Many  a 
dull  class  in  school  and  college  would  come  to  life 
if  simply  given  something  .to  do.  Until  the  mind 
reacts  for  itself  on  what  it  receives,  its  education  is 
hardly  begun. 

The  teacher  who  leads  it  so  to  react  may  be  truly 
called  "productive,"  productive  of  human  beings. 
The  noble  word  has  recently  become  Germanized 


THE  IDEAL  TEACHER  25 

and  corrupted,  and  is  now  hardly  more  than  a  piece 
of  educational  slang.  According  to  the  judgments 
of  to-day  a  teacher  may  be  unimaginative,  pedantic, 
dull,  and  may  make  his  students  no  less  so;  he  will 
still  deserve  a  crown  of  wild  olive  as  a  "productive" 
man  if  he  neglects  his  classroom  for  the  printing  press. 
But  this  is  to  put  first  things  second  and  second 
things  first.  He  who  is  original  and  fecund,  am 
knows  how  to  beget  a  similar  spirit  in  his  students, 
will  naturally  wish  to  express  himself  beyond  his 
classroom.  By  snatching  the  fragments  of  time 
which  his  arduous  work  allows,  he  may  accomplish 
much  worthy  writing  and  probably  increase  too  his 
worth  for  his  college,  his  students,  and  himself.  But 
the  business  of  book-making  is,  after  all,  collateral 
with  us  teachers.  Not  for  Jhis  are  we  employed,  de- 
sirable though  it  is  for  showing  the  kind  of  mind  we 
bear.  Many  of  my  most  productive  colleagues  have 
printed  little  or  nothing,  though  they  have  left  a  deep 
mark  on  the  life  and  science  of  our  time.  I  would 
encourage  publication.  It  keeps  the  solitary  student 
healthy,  enables  him  to  find  his  place  among  his 
fellows,  and  more  distinctly  to  estimate  the  contri- 
butions he  is  making  to  his  subject.  But  let  him  never 
neglect  his  proper  work  for  that  which  must  always  */'' 
have  in  it  an  element  of  advertising. 

Too  long  I  have  delayed  the  fourth,  the  disagree- 
able, section  of  my  paper.  Briefly  it  is  this :  a  teacher 


26  THE  IDEAL  TEACHER 

must  have  a  readiness  to  be  forgotten.  And  what  is 
harder  ?  We  may  be  excellent  persons,  may  be  daily 
doing  kindnesses,  and  yet  not  be  quite  willing  to 
have  those  kindnesses  overlooked.  Many  a  man  is 
ready  to  be  generous,  if  by  it  he  can  win  praise.  The 
love  of  praise,  —  it  is  almost  our  last  infirmity ;  but 
there  is  no  more  baffling  infirmity  for  the  teacher. 
If  praise  and  recognition  are  dear  to  him,  he  may 
as  well  stop  work.  Dear  to  him  perhaps  they  must 
be,  as  a  human  being ;  but  as  a  teacher,  he  is  called 
on  to  rise  above  ordinary  human  conditions.  Who- 
ever has  followed  me  thus  far  will  perceive  the  rea- 
son. I  have  shown  that  a  teacher  does  not  live  for 
himself,  but  for  his  pupil  and  for  the  truth  which  he 
imparts.  His  aim  is  to  be  a  colorless  medium  through 
which  that  truth  may  shine  on  opening  minds.  How 
can  he  be  this  if  he  is  continually  interposing  him- 
self and  saying,  "  Instead  of  looking  at  the  truth,  my 
children,  look  at  me  and  see  how  skilfully  I  do  my 
work.  I  thought  I  taught  you  admirably  to-day.  I 
hope  you  thought  so  too."  No,  the  teacher  must 
keep  himself  entirely  out  of  the  way,  fixing  young 
attention  on  the  proffered  knowledge  and  not  on 
anything  so  small  as  the  one  who  brings  it.  Only 
so  can  he  be  vicarious,  whole-hearted  in  invigorating 
the  lives  committed  to  his  charge. 

Moreover,  any  other  course  is  futile.    We  cannot 
tell  whether  those  whom  we  are  teaching  have  taken 


THE  IDEAL  TEACHER  27 

our  best  points  or  not.  Those  best  points,  what  are 
they?  We  shall  count  them  one  thing,  our  pupils 
another.  We  gather  what  seems  to  us  of  consequence 
and  pour  it  out  upon  our  classes.  But  if  their  minds 
are  not  fitted  to  receive  it,  the  little  creatures  have 
excellent  protective  arrangements  which  they  draw 
down,  and  all  we"  pour  is  simply  shed  as  if  nothing 
had  fallen;  while  again  we  say  something  so  slight 
that  we  hardly  notice  it,  but,  happening  to  be  just 
the  nutritive  element  which  that  small  life  then 
needs,  it  is  caught  up  and  turned  into  human  fibre. 
We  cannot  tell.  W«  work  in  the  dark.  Out  upon 
the  waters  our  bread  is  cast,  and  if  we  are  wise  we 
do  not  attempt  to  trace  its  return. 

On  this  point  I  received  capital  instruction  from 
one  of  my  pupils.  In  teaching  a  course  on  English 
Empiricism  I  undertook  a  line  of  exposition  which 
I  knew  was  abstruse.  Indeed,  I  doubted  if  many 
of  the  class  could  follow ;  but  there  on  the  front  seat 
sat  one  whose  bright  eyes  were  ever  upon  me.  It 
seemed  worth  while  to  teach  my  three  or  four  best 
men,  that  man  in  particular.  By  the  end  of  the  term 
there  were  many  grumblings.  My  class  did  not  get 
much  out  of  me  that  year.  They  graduated,  and  a 
couple  of  years  later  this  young  fellow  appeared  at 
my  door  to  say  that  he  could  not  pass  through  Cam- 
bridge without  thanking  me  for  his  work  on  Locke, 
Berkeley,  and  Hume.  Pleased  to  be  assured  that 


28  THE  IDEAL  TEACHER 

my  questionable  methods  were  justified,  and  unwill- 
ing to  drop  a  subject  so  agreeable.  I  asked  if  he 
could  tell  precisely  where  the  value  of  the  course  lay. 
"  Certainly,"  he  answered.  "  It  all  centred  in  a  single 
remark  of  Locke's.  Locke  said  we  ought  to  have 
clear  and  distinct  ideas.  I  don't  think  I  got  anything 
else  out  of  the  course." 

Well,  at  first  I  was  inclined  to  think  the  fellow 
foolish,  so  to  mistake  a  bit  of  commonplace  for  gos- 
pel truth.  Why  did  he  not  listen  to  some  of  the  pro- 
found things  I  was  saying  ?  But  on  reflection  I  saw 
that  he  was  right  and  I  wrong.  That  trivial  saying 
had  come  to  him  at  a  critical  moment  as  a  word  of 
power;  while  the  deep  matters  which  interested  me, 
and  which  I  had  been  offering  him  so  confidently 
day  by  day,  being  unsuited  to  him,  had  passed  him 
by.  He  had  not  heard  them. 

To  such  proper  unthankfulness  we  teachers  must 
accustom  ourselves.  We  cannot  tell  what  are  our 
good  deeds,  and  shall  only  plague  ourselves  and 
hinder  our  classes  if  we  try  to  find  out.  Let  us  dis- 
play our  subjects  as  lucidly  as  possible,  allow  our 
pupils  considerable  license  in  apprehension,  and  be 
content  ourselves  to  escape  observation.  But  though 
what  we  do  remains  unknown,  its  results  often  awake 
deep  affection.  Few  in  the  community  receive  love 
more  abundantly  than  we.  Wherever  we  go,  we 
meet  a  smiling  face.  Throughout  the  world,  by 


THE  IBEAL  TEACHER  29 

some  good  fortune,  the  period  of  learning  is  the 
period  of  romance,  In  those  halcyon  days  of  our 
boys  and  girls  we  have  a  share,  and  the  golden  lights 
which  flood  the  opening  years  are  reflected  on  us. 
Though  our  pupils  cannot  follow  our  efforts  in  their 
behalf,  and  indeed  ought  not,  —  it  being  our  art  to 
conceal  our  art,  —  yet  they  perceive  that  in  the  years 
when  their  happy  expansion  occurred  we  were  their 
guides.  To  us,  therefore,  their  blind  affections  cling 
as  to  few  beside  their  parents.  It  is  better  to  be  loved 
than  to  be  understood. 

Perhaps  some  readers  of  this  paper  will  begin  to  ~t 
suspect  that  it  is  impossible  to  be  a  good  teacher. 
Certainly  it  is.  Each  of  the  four  qualifications  I  have 
named  is  endless.  Not  one  of  them  can  be  fully  at- 
tained. We  can  always  be  more  imaginative,  wealthy, 
stimulating,  disinterested.  Each  year  we  creep  a 
little  nearer  to  our  goal,  only  to  find  that  a  finished 
teacher  is  a  contradiction  in  terms.  Our  reach  will 
forever  exceed  our  grasp.  Yet  what  a  delight  in 
approximation!  Even  in  our  failures  there  is  com- 
fort, when  we  see  that  they  are  generally  due  not  tp 
technical  but  to  personal  defects.  We  have  been  put- 
ting ourselves  forward,  or  have  taught  in  mechanical 
rather  than  vital  fashion,  or  have  not  undertaken 
betimes  the  labor  of  preparation,  or  have  declined  the 
trouble  of  yicarjousness. 

Evidently,  then,  as  we  become  better  teachers  we 


30  THE  IDEAL  TEACHER 

Iso  become  in  some  sort  better  persons.  Our  beau- 
tiful art,  being  so  largely  personal,  will  at  last  be 
seen  to  connect  itself  with  nearly  all  other  employ- 
ments. Every  mother  is  a  teacher.  Every  minister. 
The  lawyer  teaches  the  jury,  the  doctor  his  patient. 
The  clever  salesman  might  almost  be  said  to  use 
teaching  in  dealing  with  his  customer,  and  all  of  us 
to  be  teachers  of  one  another  in  daily  intercourse.  As 
teaching  is  the  most  universal  of  the  professions, 
those  are  fortunate  who  are  able  to  devote  their 
lives  to  its  enriching  study. 


II 

ETHICAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  THE  SCHOOLS 

WITHIN  a  few  years  a  strong  demand  has  arisen 
for  ethical  teaching  in  the  schools.  Teachers  them- 
selves have  become  interested,  and  wherever  they 
are  gathered  the  question,  "  What  shall  this  teaching 
be  ?  "  is  eagerly  discussed.  The  educational  journals 
are  full  of  it.  Within  a  year  there  have  been  pub- 
lished seven  books  on  the  subject.  Several  of  them 
—  it  would  be  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say  all  — 
are  books  of  marked  excellence.  Seldom  does  so 
large  a  percentage  of  books  in  a  single  year,  in  a 
single  country,  and  on  a  single  subject  reach  so  high 
a  level  of  merit.  I  shall  not  criticise  them,  however, 
nor  even  engage  in  the  popular  discussion  of  which 
they  form  a  part.  That  discussion  concerns  itself 
chiefly  with  the  methods  by  which  ethics  may  be 
taught.  I  wish  to  go  behind  this  controversy  and 
to  raise  the  previous  question  whether  ethics  should 
be  taught  to  boys  and  girls  at  all. 

Evidently  there  are  strong  reasons  why  it  should 
be.  Always  and  everywhere  it  is  important  that 
men  should  be  good.  To  be  a  good  man!  —  it  is 
more  than  half  the  fulfilment  of  life.  Better  to  miss 


32   ETHICAL  INSTRUCTION  IN   SCHOOLS 

fame,  wealth,  learning,  than  to  miss  righteousness. 
And  in  America,  too,  we  must  demand  not  the  mere 
trifle  that  men  shall  be  good  for  their  own  sakes, 
but  good  in  order  that  the  life  of  the  state  may  be 
preserved.  A  widespread  righteousness  is  in  a  repub- 
lic a  matter  of  necessity.  Where  all  rule  all,  each 
man  who  falls  into  evil  courses  infects  his  neigh- 
bor, corrupting  the  law  and  corrupting  still  more  its 
enforcement.  The  question  of  manufacturing  moral 
men  becomes,  accordingly,  in  a  democracy,  urgent 
to  a  degree  unknown  in  a  country  where  but  a  few 
selected  persons  guide  the  state. 

There  is  also  special  urgency  at  the  present  time. 
The  ancient  and  accredited  means  of  training  youth 
in  goodness  are  becoming,  I  will  not  say  broken,  but 
enfeebled  and  distrusted.  Hitherto  a  large  part  of 
the  moral  instruction  of  mankind  has  been  super- 
intended by  the  clergy.  In  every  civilized  state  the 
expensive  machinery  of  the  Church  has  been  set 
up  and  placed  in  the  hands  of  men  of  dignity,  be- 
cause it  has  been  believed  that  by  no  other  engine 
can  we  so  effectively  render  people  upright.  I  still 
believe  this,  and  I  am  pretty  confident  that  a  good 
many  years  will  pass  before  we  shall  dispense  with 
the  ennobling  services  of  our  ministers.  And  yet  it  is 
plain  that  much  of  the  work  which  formerly  was 
exclusively  theirs  is  so  no  longer.  Much  of  it  is  per- 
formed by  books,  newspapers,  and  facilitated  human 


ETHICAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS   33 

intercourse.  Ministers  do  not  now  speak  with  their 
old  authority ;  they  speak  merely  as  other  men  speak ; 
and  we  are  all  asking  whether  in  the  immense  re- 
adjustment of  faith  now  going  on  something  of  their 
peculiar  power  of  moral  as  well  as  of  intellectual 
guidance  may  not  slip  away. 

The  home  toe  which  has  hitherto  been  the 
fundamental  agency  for  fostering  morality  in  the 
young,  is  just  now  in  sore  need  of  repair.  We  can 
no  longer  depend  upon  it  alone  for  moral  guardian- 
ship. It  must  be  supplemented,  possibly  recon- 
structed. New  dangers  to  it  have  arisen.  In  the 
complex  civilization  of  city  life,  in  the  huge  influx 
of  untutored  foreigners,  in  the  substitution  of  the 
apartment  for  the  house,  in  the  greater  ease  of 
divorce,  in  the  larger  freedom  now  given  to  children, 
to  women,  in  the  breaking  down  of  class  distinctions 
and  the  readier  accessibility  of  man  to  man,  there 
are  perils  for  boy  and  girl  which  did  not  exist  be- 
fore. And  while  these  changes  in  the  outward  form 
of  domestic  life  are  advancing,  certain  protections 
against  moral  peril  which  the  home  formerly  afforded 
have  decayed.  It  would  be  curious  to  ascertain  in 
how  many  families  of  our  immediate  time  daily 
prayers  are  used,  and  to  compare  the  number  with 
that  of  those  in  which  the  holy  practice  was  com- 
mon fifty  years  ago.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know 
how  frequently  parents  to-day  converse  with  their 


34    ETHICAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS 

children  on  subjects  serious,  pious,  or  personal. 
The  hurry  of  modern  life  has  swept  away  many  up- 
lifting intimacies.  Even  in  families  which  prize  them 
most,  a  few  minutes  only  can  be  had  each  day  for 
such  fortifying  things.  Domestic  training  has  shrunk, 
while  the  training  of  haphazard  companions,  the 
training  of  the  streets,  the  training  of  the  newspa- 
pers, have  acquired  a  potency  hitherto  unknown. 

It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  in  such  a  moral  crisis 
the  community  turns  to  that  agency  whose  power 
is  already  felt  beneficently  in  a  multitude  of  other 
directions,  the  school.  The  cry  comes  to  us  teachers, 
"We  established  you  at  first  to  make  our  children 
wiser;  we  want  you  now  for  a  profounder  service. 
Can  you  not  unite  moral  culture  with  intellectual  ?  " 
It  may  be ;  though  discipline  of  the  passions  is  enor- 
mously more  difficult  than  discipline  of  the  mind. 
But  at  any  rate  we  must  acknowledge  that  our  suc- 
cess in  the  mental  field  is  largely  staked  on  our  suc- 
cess in  the  moral.  Our  pupils  will  not  learn  their 
lessons  in  arithmetic  if  they  have  not  already  made 
some  progress  in  concentration,  in  self-forgetfulness, 
in  acceptance  of  duty.  Nor  can  we  touch  them  in 
a  single  section  of  their  nature  and  hope  for  results. 
Instruction  must  go  all  through.  We  are  obliged 
to  treat  each  little  human  being  as  a  whole  if  we 
would  have  our  treatment  wholesome.  And  then 
too  we  have  had  such  successes  elsewhere  that  we 


ETHICAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS   35 

may  well  feel  emboldened  for  the  new  task.  Nearly 
the  whole  of  life  is  now  advantageously  surveyed 
in  one  form  or  another  in  our  schools  and  colleges ; 
and  we  have  usually  found  that  advance  in  instruc- 
tion develops  swiftly  into  betterment  of  practice. 
We  teach,  for  example,  social  science  and  analyze 
the  customs  of  the  past ;  but  soon  we  find  bands  of 
young  men  and  women  in  all  the  important  cities 
criticising  the  government  of  those  cities,  suggesting 
better  modes  of  voting,  wiser  forms  of  charity;  and 
before  we  know  it  the  community  is  transformed. 
We  cannot  teach  the  science  of  electricity  without 
improving  our  street-cars,  or  at  least  without  rais- 
ing hopes  that  they  may  some  day  be  improved. 
Each  science  claims  its  brother  art.  Theory  creeps 
over  into  action.  It  will  not  stay  by  itself;  it  is  per- 
vasive, diffusive.  And  as  this  pervasive  character  of 
knowledge  in  the  lower  ranges  is  perceived,  we  teach- 
ers are  urged  to  press  forward  its  operation  in  the 
higher  also.  Why  have  we  no  school-books  on 
human  character,  the  highest  of  all  themes  ?  Once 
direct  the  attention  of  our  pupils  to  this  great  topic, 
and  may  we  not  ultimately  bring  about  that  moral 
enlargement  for  which  the  time  waits  ? 

I  have  stated  somewhat  at  length  the  considera- 
tions in  behalf  of  ethical  instruction  in  the  schools 
because  those  considerations  on  the  whole  appear 
to  me  illusory.  I  cannot  believe  such  instruction 


36   ETHICAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS 

feasible.  Were  it  so,  of  course  it  would  have  my  eager 
support.  But  I  see  in  it  grave  difficulties,  difficulties 
imperfectly  understood ;  and  a  difficulty  disregarded 
becomes  a  danger,  possibly  a  catastrophe.  Let  me 
explain  in  a  few  words  where  the  danger  lies. 

Between  morals  and  ethics  there  is  a  sharp  dis- 
tinction, frequently  as  the  two  words  are  confused. 
Usage,  however,  shows  the  meaning.  If  I  call  a 
man  a  man  of  bad  morals,  I  evidently  mean  to  as- 
sert that  his  conduct  is  corrupt ;  he  does  things  which 
the  majority  of  mankind  believe  he  ought  not  to  do. 
It  is  his  practice  I  denounce,  not  his  intellectual 
formulation.  In  the  same  way  we  speak  of  the  petty 
morals  of  society,  referring  in  the  phrase  to  the  small 
practices  of  mankind,  the  unnumbered  actions 
which  disclose  good  or  bad  principles  unconsciously 
hidden  within.  It  is  entirely  different  when  I  call 
a  man's  ethics  bad.  I  then  declare  that  I  do  not 
agree  with  his  comprehension  of  moral  principles. 
His  practice  may  be  entirely  correct.  I  do  not  speak 
of  that;  it  is  his  understanding  that  is  at  fault.  For 
ethics,  as  was  long  ago  remarked,  is  related  to  morals 
as  geometry  to  carpentry:  the  one  is  a  science,  the 
other  its  practical  embodiment.  In  the  former,  con- 
sciousness is  a  prime  factor;  from  the  latter  it  often 
is  absent  altogether. 

Now  what  is  asked  of  us  teachers  is  that  we  in- 
vite our  pupils  to  direct  study  of  the  principles  of 


ETHICAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS   37 

right  conduct,  that  we  awaken  their  consciousness 
about  their  modes  of  life,  and  so  by  degrees  impart 
to  them  a  science  of  righteousness.  This  is  theory, 
ethics;  not  morals,  practice;  and  in  my  judgment  it 
is  dangerous  business,  with  the  slenderest  chance  of 
success.  Useless  is  it  to  say  that  the  aim  of  such  in- 
struction need  not  be  ethical,  but  moral.  Whatever 
the  ultimate  aim,  the  procedure  of  instruction  is  of 
necessity  scientific.  It  operates  through  intelligence, 
and  only  gets  into  life  so  far  as  the  instructed  in- 
telligence afterward  becomes  a  director.  This  is 
the  work  of  books  and  teachers  everywhere:  they 
discipline  the  knowing  act,  and  so  bring  within  its 
influence  that  multitude  of  matters  which  depend 
for  excellent  adjustment  on  clear  and  ordered  know- 
ledge. Such  a  work,  however,  is  evidently  but  par- 
tial. Many  matters  do  not  take  their  rise  in  know- 
ledge at  all.  Morality  does  not.  The  boy  as  soon  as 
born  is  adopted  unconsciously  into  some  sort  of 
moral  world.  While  he  is  growing  up  and  is  think- 
ing of  other  things,  habits  of  character  are  seizing 
him.  By  the  time  he  comes  to  school  he  is  incrusted 
with  customs.  The  idea  that  his  moral  education  can 
be  fashioned  by  his  teacher  in  the  same  way  as  his 
education  in  geography  is  fantastic.  It  is  only  his 
ethical  training  which  may  now  begin.  The  attention 
of  such  a  boy  may  be  called  to  habits  already  fonned ; 
he  may  be  led  to  dissect  those  habits,  to  pass  judg- 


38   ETHICAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS 

ment  on  them  as  right  or  wrong,  and  to  inquire 
why  and  how  they  may  be  bettered.  This  is  the  only 
power  teaching  professes :  it  critically  inquires,  it 
awakens  interest,  it  inspects  facts,  it  discovers  laws. 
And  this  process  applied  in  the  field  of  character  yields 
ethics,  the  systematized  knowledge  of  human  con- 
duct. It  does  not  primarily  yield  morals,  improved 
performance. 

Nor  indeed  is  performance  likely  to  be  improved 
by  ethical  enlightenment  if,  as  I  maintain,  the  whole 
business  of  self-criticism  in  the  child  is  unwhole- 
some. By  a  course  of  ethical  training  a  young  per- 
son will,  in  my  view,  much  more  probably  become 
demoralized  than  invigorated.  What  we  ought  to 
desire,  if  we  would  have  a  boy  grow  morally  sturdy, 
is  that  ^introspection  should  not  set  in  early  and  that 
he  should  not  become  accustomed  to  watch  his  con- 
duct. And  the  reason  is  obvious.  Much  as  we  in- 
cline to  laud  our  prerogative  of  consciousness  and 
to  assert  that  it  is  precisely  what  distinguishes  us 
from  our  poor  relations,  the  brutes,  we  still  must 
acknowledge  that  consciousness  has  certain  grave 
defects  when  exalted  into  the  position  of  a  guide. 
Large  tracts  of  life  lie  altogether  beyond  its  control, 
and  the  conduct  which  can  be  affected  by  it  is  apt 
—  especially  in  the  initial  stages  —  to  be  rendered 
vague,  slow,  vacillating,  and  distorted.  Only  instinc- 
tive action  is  swift,  sure,  and  firm.  For  this  reason 


ETHICAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS   39 

we  distrust  the  man  who  calculates  his  goodness. 
We  find  him  vulgar  and  repellent.  We  are  far  from 
sure  that  he  will  keep  that  goodness  long.  If  I  offer 
to  shake  hands  with  a  man  with  precisely  that  degree 
of  warmth  which  I  have  decided  it  is  well  to  express, 
will  he  willingly  take  my  hand  ?  A  few  years  ago  there 
were  some  nonsense  verses  on  this  subject  going  the 
rounds  of  the  English  newspapers.  They  seemed 
to  me  capitally  to  express  the  morbid  influence 
of  consciousness  in  a  complex  organism.  They  ran 
somewhat  as  follows: 

The  centipede  was  happy,  quite, 

Until  the  toad  for  fun 

Said,  "Pray  which  leg  comes  after  which?" 
This  worked  her  mind,  to  such  a  pitch 
She  lay  distracted  in  a  ditch, 

Considering  how  to  run. 

And  well  she  might!  Imagine  the  hundred  legs 
steered  consciously  —  now  it  is  time  to  move  this 
one,  now  to  move  that!  The  creature  would  never 
move  at  all,  but  would  be  as  incapable  of  action  as 
Hamlet  himself.  And  are  the  young  less  complex 
than  centipedes  ?  Shall  their  little  lives  be  suddenly 
turned  over  to  a  fumbling  guide?  Shall  they  not 
rather  be  stimulated  to  unconscious  rectitude,  gently 
led  into  those  blind  but  holy  habits  which  make 
goodness  easy,  and  so  be  saved  from  the  perilous 
perplexities  of  marking  out  their  own  way?  So 


40    ETHICAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS 

thought  the  sagacious  Aristotle.  To  the  crude  early 
opinion  of  Socrates  that  virtue  is  knowledge,  he  op- 
posed the  ripened  doctrine  that  it  is  practice  and 
habit. 

This,  then,  is  the  inexpugnable  objection  to  the 
ethical  instruction  of  children :  the  end  which  should 
be  sought  is  performance,  not  knowledge,  and  we 
cannot  by  supplying  the  latter  induce  the  former. 
But  do  not  these  considerations  cut  the  ground 
from  under  practical  teaching  of  every  kind?  In- 
struction is  given  in  other  subjects  in  the  hope  that  it 
may  finally  issue  in  strengthened  action,  and  I  have 
acknowledged  that  as  a  fact  this  hope  is  repeatedly 
justified.  Why  may  not  a  similar  result  appear  in 
ethics  ?  What  puts  a  difference  between  that  study 
and  electricity,  social  science,  or  manual  training? 
This:  according  as  the  work  studied  includes  a 
creative  element  and  is  intended  to  give  expression 
to  a  personal  life,  consciousness  becomes  an  increas- 
ingly dangerous  dependence.  Why  are  there  no 
classes  and  text-books  for  the  study  of  deportment  ? 
Is  it  because  manners  are  unimportant?  No,  but 
because  they  make  the  man,  and  to  be  of  any  worth 
must  be  an  expression  of  his  very  nature.  Conscious 
study  would  tend  to  distort  rather  than  to  fashion 
them.  Their  practice  cannot  be  learned  in  the  same 
way  as  carpentry. 

But  an  analogy  more  enlightening  for  showing  the 


ETHICAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS    41 

inaptitude  of  the  child  for  direct  study  of  the  laws 
of  conduct  is  found  in  the  case  of  speech.  Between 
speech  and  morals  the  analogies  are  subtle  and  wide. 
So  minute  are  they  that  speech  might  almost  be 
called  a  kind  of  vocal  morality.  Like  morality,  it  is 
something  possessed  long  before  we  are  aware  of  it, 
and  it  becomes  perfect  or  debased  with  our  growth. 
We  employ  it  to  express  ourselves  and  to  come  into 
ordered  contact  with  our  neighbor.  By  it  we  confer 
benefits  and  by  it  receive  benefits  in  turn.  Rigid  as 
are  its  laws,  we  still  feel  ourselves  free  in  its  use, 
though  obliged  to  give  to  our  spontaneous  feelings 
forms  constructed  by  men  of  the  past.  Ease,  accu- 
racy, and  scope  are  here  confessedly  of  vast  conse- 
quence. It  has  consequently  been  found  a  matter  of 
extreme  difficulty  to  bring  a  young  person's  attention 
helpfully  to  bear  upon  his  speech.  Indirect  meth- 
ods seem  to  be  the  only  profitable  ones.  Philology, 
grammar,  rhetoric,  systematic  study  of  the  laws  of 
language,  are  dangerous  tools  for  a  boy  below  his 
teens.  The  child  who  is  to  acquire  excellent  speech 
must  be  encouraged  to  keep  attention  away  from  the 
words  he  uses  and  to  fix  it  upon  that  which  he  is  to 
express.  Abstract  grammar  will  either  confound  the 
tongue  which  it  should  ease,  or  else  it  will  seem  to 
have  no  connection  with  living  reality,  but  to  be  an 
ingenious  contrivance  invented  by  some  Dry-as-dust 
for  the  torture  of  schoolboys. 


42   ETHICAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS 

And  a  similar  pair  of  dangers  await  the  young 
student  of  the  laws  of  conduct.  On  the  one  hand, 
it  is  highly  probable  that  he  will  not  understand 
what  his  teacher  is  talking  about.  He  may  learn 
his  lesson;  he  may  answer  questions  correctly;  but 
he  will  assume  that  these  things  have  nothing  to  do 
with  him.  He  becomes  dulled  to  moral  distinctions, 
and  it  is  the  teaching  of  ethics  that  dulls  him.  We 
see  the  disastrous  process  in  full  operation  in  a  neigh- 
boring field.  There  are  countries  which  have  regular 
public  instruction  in  religion.  The  argument  runs 
that  schools  are  established  to  teach  what  is  of  conse- 
quence to  citizens,  and  religion  is  of  more  consequence 
than  anything  else.  Therefore  introduce  it,  is  the  con- 
clusion. Therefore  keep  it  out,  is  the  sound  conclusion. 
It  lies  too  near  the  life  to  be  announced  in  official  pro- 
positions and  still  to  retain  a  recognizable  meaning. 
I  have  known  a  large  number  of  German  young  men. 
I  have  yet  to  meet  one  whose  religious  nature  has 
been  deepened  by  his  instruction  in  school.  And  the 
lack  of  influence  is  noticeable  not  merely  in  those 
who  have  failed  in  the  study,  but  quite  as  much 
in  those  who  have  ranked  highest.  In  neither  case 
has  the  august  discipline  meant  anything.  The 
danger  would  be  wider,  the  disaster  from  the  be- 
numbing influence  more  serious,  if  ethical  instruc- 
tion should  be  organized;  wider,  because  morality 
underlies  religion,  and  insensitiveness  to  the  moral 


ETHICAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS   43 

claim  is  more  immediately  and  concretely  destruc- 
tive. Yet  here,  as  in  the  case  of  religion,  of  manners, 
or  of  speech,  the  child  will  probably  take  to  heart 
very  little  of  what  is  said.  At  most  he  will  assume 
that  the  text-book  statement  of  the  rules  of  righteous- 
ness represents  the  way  in  which  the  game  of  life 
is  played  by  some  people ;  but  he  will  prefer  to  play 
it  in  his  own  way  still.  Young  people  are  constructed 
with  happy  protective  arrangements ;  they  are  envia- 
bly impervious.  So  in  expounding  moral  principles  in 
the  schoolroom,  I  believe  we  shall  touch  the  child  in 
very  few  moral  spots.  Nevertheless,  it  becomes  dulled 
and  hardened  if  it  listens  long  to  sacred  words  un- 
touched. 

But  the  benumbing  influence  is  not  the  gravest 
danger;  analogies  of  speech  suggest  a  graver  still. 
If  we  try  to  teach  speech  too  early  and  really  succeed 
in  fixing  the  child's  attention  upon  its  tongue,  we 
enfeeble  its  power  of  utterance.  Consciousness  once 
awakened,  the  child  is  perpetually  inquiring  whether 
the  word  is  the  right  word,  and  suspecting  that  it 
is  not  quite  sufficiently  right  to  be  allowed  free  pas- 
sage. Just  so  a  momentous  trouble  appears  when 
the  moral  consciousness  has  been  too  early  stirred. 
That  self-questioning  spirit  springs  up  which  impels 
its  tortured  possessor  to  be  continually  fingering 
his  motives  in  unwholesome  preoccupation  with 
himself.  Instead  of  entering  heartily  into  outward 


44    ETHICAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS 

interests,  the  watchful  little  moralist  is  "questioning 
about  himself  whether  he  has  been  as  good  as  he 
should  have  been,  and  whether  a  better  man  would 
not  have  acted  otherwise."  No  part  of  us  is  more 
susceptible  of  morbidness  than  the  moral  sense; 
none  demoralizes  more  thoroughly  when  morbid. 
The  trouble,  too,  affects  chiefly  those  of  the  finer 
fibre.  The  majority  of  healthy  children,  as  has  been 
said,  harden  themselves  against  theoretic  talk,  and 
it  passes  over  them  like  the  wind.  Here  and  there  a 
sensitive  soul  absorbs  the  poison  and  sets  itself  seri- 
ously to  work  installing  duty  as  the  mainspring  of  its 
life.  We  all  know  the  unwholesome  result :  the  per- 
son from  whom  spontaneity  is  gone,  who  criticises 
everything  he  does,  who  has  lost  his  sense  of  pro- 
portion, who  teases  himself  endlessly  and  teases  his 
friends  —  so  far  as  they  remain  his  friends  —  about 
the  right  and  wrong  of  each  petty  act.  It  is  a  disease, 
a  moral  disease,  and  takes  the  place  in  the  spiritual 
life  of  that  which  the  doctors  are  fond  of  calling 
"nervous  prostration"  in  the  physical..  Few  coun- 
tries have  been  so  desolated  by  it  as  New  England. 
It  is  our  special  scourge.  Many  here  carry  a  con- 
science about  with  them  which  makes  us  say,  "  How 
much  better  off  they  would  be  with  none!"  I  de- 
clare, at  times  when  I  see  the  ravages  which  con- 
scientiousness works  in  our  New  England  stock,  I 
wish  these  New  Englanders  had  never  heard  moral 


ETHICAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS    45 

distinctions  mentioned.  Better  their  vices  than  their 
virtues.  The  wise  teacher  will  extirpate  the  first 
sproutings  of  the  weed;  for  a  weed  more  difficult  to 
extirpate  when  grown  there  is  not.  We  run  a  serious 
risk  of  implanting  it  in  our  children  when  we  under- 
take their  class  instruction  in  ethics. 

Such,  then,  are  some  of  the  considerations  which 
should  give  us  pause  when  the  public  is  clamoring 
at  our  schoolhouse  doors  and  saying  to  us  teachers, 
"We  cannot  bring  up  our  children  so  as  to  make 
them  righteous  citizens.  Undertake  the  work  for 
us.  You  have  done  so  much  already  that  we  turn 
to  you  again  and  entreat  your  help."  I  think  we 
must  sadly  reply,  "  There  are  limits  to  what  we  can 
do.  If  you  respect  us,  you  will  not  urge  us  to  do  the 
thing  that  is  not  ours.  By  pressing  into  certain  re- 
gions we  shall  bring  upon  you  more  disaster  than 
benefit." 

Fully,  however,  as  the  dangers  here  pointed  out 
may  be  acknowledged,  much  of  a  different  sort 
remains  also  true.  Have  we  not  all  received  a  large 
measure  of  moral  culture  at  school?  And  are  we 
quite  content  to  say  that  the  greatest  of  subjects  is 
unteachable  ?  I  would  not  say  this ;  on  the  contrary, 
I  hold  that  no  college  is  properly  organized  where 
the  teaching  of  ethics  does  not  occupy  a  position  of 
honor.  The  college,  not  the  school,  is  the  place  for 
the  study.  It  would  be  absurd  to  maintain  that  all 


46  ETHICAL  INSTRUCTION   IN  SCHOOLS 

other  subjects  of  study  are  nutritious  to  man  except 
that  of  his  own  nature ;  but  it  is  far  from  absurd  to 
ask  that  a  young  man  first  possess  a  nature  before 
he  undertakes  to  analyze  it.  A  study  useless  for  de- 
veloping initial  power  may  still  be  highly  profitable 
for  doctrine,  for  reproof,  for  correction,  for  instruc- 
tion in  righteousness.  Youth  should  be  spontane- 
ous, instinctive,  ebullient ;  reflection  whispers  to  the 
growing  man.  Many  of  the  evils  that  I  have  thus 
far  traced  are  brought  about  by  projecting  upon  a 
young  mind  problems  which  it  has  not  yet  encoun- 
tered in  itself.  Such  problems  abound  in  the  later 
teens  and  twenties,  and  then  is  the  time  to  set  about 
their  discussion. 

But  even  in  college  I  would  have  ethical  study 
more  guarded  than  the  rest.  Had  I  the  power,  I 
would  never  allow  it  to  be  required  of  all.  It  should 
be  offered  only  as  an  elective  and  in  the  later  years 
of  the  course.  When  I  entered  college  I  was  put  in 
my  freshman  year  into  a  prescribed  study  of  this 
sort.  Happily  I  received  no  influence  from  it  what- 
ever. It  passed  over  and  left  me  untouched;  and 
I  think  it  had  no  more  effect  on  the  majority  of  my 
classmates.  Possibly  some  of  the  more  reflective 
took  it  to  heart  and  were  harmed ;  but  in  general  it 
was  a  mere  wasting  of  precious  ointment  which  might 
have  soothed  our  wounds  if  elected  in  the  senior 
year.  Of  course  great  teachers  defy  all  rules;  and 


ETHICAL  INSTRUCTION   IN  SCHOOLS   47 

under  a  Hopkins,  a  Garman,  or  a  Hyde,  the  dis- 
tinctions of  elective  and  prescribed  become  unim- 
portant. Yet  the  principle  is  clear:  wait  till  the 
young  man  is  confronted  with  the  problems  before 
you  invite  him  to  their  solution.  Has  he  grown  up 
unquestioning?  Has  he  accepted  the  moral  code 
inherited  from  honored  parents?  Can  he  rest  in 
wise  habits?  Then  let  him  be  thankful  and  go  his 
way  untaught.  But  has  he,  on  the  other  hand,  felt 
that  the  moral  mechanism  by  which  he  was  early 
guided  does  not  fit  all  cases  ?  Has  he  found  one  class 
of  duties  in  conflict  with  another  ?  Has  he  discovered 
that  the  moral  standards  obtaining  in  different  sec- 
tions of  society,  in  different  parts  of  the  world,  are 
irreconcilable  ?  In  short,  is  he  puzzled  and  desirous 
of  working  his  way  through  his  puzzles,  of  facing 
them  and  tracking  them  to  their  beginnings  ?  Then 
is  he  ripe  for  the  study  of  ethics. 

Yet  when  it  is  so  undertaken,  when  those  only 
are  invited  to  partake  of  it  who  in  their  own  hearts 
have  heard  its  painful  call,  even  then  I  would  hedge 
it  about  with  two  conditions.  First,  it  should  be 
pursued  as  a  science,  critically,  and  the  student 
should  be  informed  at  the  outset  that  the  aim  of  the 
course  is  knowledge,  not  the  endeavor  to  make  better 
men.  And,  secondly,  I  would  insist  that  the  students 
themselves  do  the  work;  that  they  do  not  passively 
listen  to  opinions  set  forth  by  their  instructor,  but 


48  ETHICAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS 

that  they  address  themselves  to  research  and  learn 
to  construct  moral  judgments  which  will  bear  critical 
inspection.  Some  teachers,  no  doubt,  will  think  it 
wisest  to  accomplish  these  things  by  tracing  the  course 
of  ethics  in  the  past,  treating  it  as  a  historical  science. 
Others  will  prefer,  by  announcing  their  own  beliefs, 
to  stimulate  their  students  to  criticise  those  beliefs 
and  to  venture  on  their  own  little  constructions.  The 
method  is  unimportant;  it  is  only  of  consequence 
that  the  students  themselves  do  the  ethicizing,  that 
they  trace  the  logic  of  their  own  beliefs  and  do  not 
rest  in  dogmatic  statement.  Yet  such  an  under- 
taking may  well  sober  a  teacher.  I  never  see  my 
class  in  ethics  come  to  their  first  lecture  that  I  do 
not  tremble  and  say  to  myself  that  I  am  set  for  the 
downfall  of  some  of  them.  In  every  such  studious 
company  there  must  be  unprepared  persons  whom 
the  teacher  will  damage.  He  cannot  help  it.  He 
must  move  calmly  forward,  confident  in  his  subject, 
but  knowing  that  because  it  is  living  it  is  dangerous. 


Ill 

MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  THE  SCHOOLS 

THE  preceding  paper  has  discussed  sufficiently  the 
negative  side  of  moral  education.  It  has  shown  how 
children  should  not  be  approached.  But  few  readers 
will  be  willing  to  leave  the  matter  here.  Are  there  no 
positive  measures  to  be  taken  ?  Is  there  no  room  in 
our  schools  for  any  teaching  of  morality,  or  must  the 
most  important  of  subjects  be  altogether  banished 
from  their  doors  ?  There  is  much  which  might  lead  us 
to  think  so.  If  a  teacher  may  not  instruct  his  pupils 
in  morality,  what  other  concern  with  itPhe  should  have 
is  not  at  once  apparent.  One  may  even  suspect  that 
attention  to  it  will  distract  him  from  his  proper  work. 
Every  human  undertaking  has  some  central  aim  and 
succeeds  by  loyalty  to  it.  Each  profession,  for  ex- 
ample, singles  out  one  of  our  many  needs  and  to  this 
devotes  itself  whole-heartedly.  Such  a  restriction  is 
wise.  No  profession  could  be  strong  which  attempted 
to  meet  the  requirements  of  man  as  a  whole.  The 
physician  accordingly  selects  his  little  aim  of  extir- 
pating suffering  and  disease.  His  studies,  his  occu- 
pation, his  aptitudes,  his  hopes  of  gain,  his  dignity 
as  a  public  character,  all  have  reference  to  this. 


50    MORAL  INSTRUCTION   IN  SCHOOLS 

Whatever  is  incompatible  with  it,  of  however  great 
worth  in  itself,  is  rightly  ignored.  To  save  the  soul 
of  a  patient  may  be  of  larger  consequence  than  to 
invigorate  his  body.  But  the  faithful  physician  at- 
tends to  spiritual  matters  only  so  far  as  he  thinks 
them  conducive  to  bodily  health.  Or  again  the 
painter,  because  he  is  setting  ocular  beauty  before  us, 
concerns  himself  with  harmonies  of  color,  balance 
of  masses,  rhythms  of  line,  rather  than  with  history, 
anecdote,  or  incitements  to  noble  living.  I  once 
heard  a  painter  say,  "There  is  religion  enough  for 
me  in  seeing  how  half  a  dozen  figures  can  be  made 
to  go  together,"  and  I  honored  him  for  the  saying. 
So  too  I  should  hold  that  the  proper  aim  of  the  mer- 
chant is  money-making  and  that  only  so  much  of 
charity  or  public  usefulness  can  fairly  be  demanded 
of  him  as  does  not  conflict  with  his  profits.  It  is  true 
that  there  are  large  ways  and  petty  ways  of  acquiring 
gain,  and  one's  own  advantage  cannot  for  long  be 
separated  from  that  of  others.  Still,  the  merchant 
rightly  desists  from  any  course  which  he  finds  in 
the  long  run  commercially  unprofitable. 

What,  then,  is  the  central  aim  of  teaching?  Con- 
fessedly it  is  the  impartation  of  knowledge.  Whatever 
furthers  this  should  be  eagerly  pursued ;  and  all  that 
hinders  it,  rejected.  When  schoolmasters  under- 
stand their  business  it  will  be  useless  for  the  public  to 
call  to  them,  "  We  want  our  children  to  be  patriotic. 


MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS    51 

Drop  for  a  time  your  multiplication  table  while  you 
rouse  enthusiasm  for  the  old  flag."  They  would 
properly  reply,  "We  are  ready  to  teach  American 
history.  As  a  part  of  human  knowledge,  it  belongs 
to  our  province.  But  though  the  politicians  fail 
to  stir  patriotism,  do  not  put  their  neglected  work 
upon  us.  We  have  more  than  we  can  attend  to 
already." 

Now  in  my  previous  paper  I  showed  how  a  theo- 
retic knowledge  of  good  conduct  had  better  not  be 
given  to  children.  By  exposition  of  holy  laws  they 
are  not  nourished,  but  enfeebled.  What  they  need 
is  right  habits,  not  an  understanding  of  them:  to 
become  good  persons  rather  than  to  acquire  a  criti- 
cal acquaintance  with  goodness.  What  moral  function 
then  remains  for  the  schools  ?  To  furnish  knowledge 
of  morality  has  been  proved  dangerous.  For  teach- 
ers to  turn  away  from  imparting  knowledge  and 
devote  their  scanty  time  to  fashioning  character  is 
to  abandon  work  which  they  alone  are  fitted  to 
perform.  Yet  to  let  them  send  forth  boys  and  girls 
alert  in  mind  and  loose  in  character  is  something 
which  no  community  will  long  endure. 

Until  one  has  clearly  faced  these  alternative  per- 
plexities he  is  in  no  condition  to  advise  about  graft- 
ing morality  into  a  school  curriculum;  for  until  then 
he  will  be  pretty  sure  to  be  misled  by  the  popular 
notion  of  morality  as  a  thing  apart,  demanding 


52    MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS 

separate  study,  a  topic  like  geography  or  English 
literature.  But  the  morality  nutritious  for  school- 
children is  nothing  of  this  kind.  No  additional 
hour  need  be  provided  for  its  teaching.  In  teaching 
anything,  we  teach  it.  A  false  antithesis  was  therefore 
set  up  just  now  when  we  suggested  that  a  teacher's 
business  was  to  impart  knowledge  rather  than  to 
fashion  character.  He  cannot  do  the  one  without 
the  other.  Let  him  be  altogether  true  to  his  scientific 
aims  and  refuse  to  accommodate  them  to  anything 
else;  he  will  be  all  the  better  teacher  of  morality. 
Carlyle  tells  of  a  carpenter  who  broke  all  the  ten 
commandments  with  every  stroke  of  his  hammer. 
A  scholar  breaks  or  keeps  them  with  every  lesson 
learned.  So  conditioned  on  morality  is  the  process 
of  knowing,  so  inwrought  is  it  in  the  very  structure 
of  the  school,  that  a  school  might  well  be  called  an 
ethical  instrument  and  its  daily  sessions  hours  for 
the  manufacture  of  character.  Only  the  species  of 
character  manufactured  will  largely  depend  on  the 
teacher's  acquaintance  with  the  instrument  he  is  us- 
ing. To  increase  that  acquaintance  and  give  greater 
deftness  in  the  use  of  so  exquisite  an  instrument  is 
the  object  of  this  paper.  Once  mastered,  the  tools 
of  his  own  trade  will  be  more  prized  by  the  earnest 
teacher  than  any  additional  hand-book  of  ethics. 
It  will  be  easiest  to  point  out  the  kind  of  moral 
instruction  a  school  is  fitted  to  give,  if  we  distinguish 


MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS    5$ 

with  somewhat  exaggerated  sharpness  its  several 
lines  of  activity.  A  school  is  primarily  a  place  of 
learning;  it  is  unavoidably  a  social  unit,  and  it 
is  incidentally  a  dependent  fellowship.  No  one  of 
these  aspects  is  ever  absent  from  it.  Each  affords 
its  own  opportunity  for  moral  training.  The  com- 
bination of  them  gives  a  school  its  power.  Yet  each 
is  so  detachable  that  it  may  well  become  the  sub- 
ject of  independent  study. 

I.  A  school  is  primarily  a  place  of  learning,  and 
to  this  purpose  all  else  in  it  is  rightfully  subordinated. 
But  learning  is  itself  an  act,  and  one  more  dependent 
than  most  on  moral  guidance.  It  occurs,  too,  at  a 
period  of  life  whose  chief  business  is  the  transforma- 
tion of  a  thing  of  nature  into  a  spiritual  being. 
Several  stages  in  this  spiritual  transformation  through 
which  the  process  of  learning  takes  us  I  will  point 
out. 

A  school  generally  gives  a  child  his  first  acquaint- 
ance with  an  authoritatively  organized  world  and 
reveals  his  dependence  upon  it.  By  nature,  impulses 
and  appetites  rule  him.  (A.  child  is  charmingly  self- 
centre^  The  world  and  all  its  ordered  goings  he 
notices  merely  as  ministering  to  his  desires.  Nothing 
but  what  he  wishes,  and  wishes  just  now,  is  impor- 
tant^ He  relates  all  this  but  little  to  the  wishes  of 
other  people,  to  the  inherent  fixities  of  things,  to  his 
own  future  states,  to  whether  one  wish  is  compati- 


54    MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS 

ble  with  another.  His  immediate  mood  is  every- 
thing. Of  any  difference  between  what  is  whimsical 
or  momentary  and  what  is  rational  or  permanent 
he  is  oblivious.  To  him  dreams  and  fancies  are  as 
substantial  as  stars,  hills,  or  moving  creatures.  He 
has,  in  short,  no  idea  of  law  nor  any  standards  of 
reality. 

Now  it  is  the  first  business  of  instruction  to  im- 
part such  ideas  and  standards;  but  no, less  is  this  a 
work  of  moralization.  The  two  accordingly  go  on 
together.  Whether  we  call  the  chaotic  conditions  of 
nature  in  which  we  begin  life  ignorance  or  deficient 
morality,  it  is  equally  the  work  of  education  to  abol- 
ish them.  Both  education  and  morality  set  themselves 
to  rationalize  the  moody,  lawless,  transient,  isolated, 
self-assertive,  and  impatient  aspects  of  things,  in- 
troducing the  wondering  scholar  to  the  inherent 
necessities  which  surround  him.  "Schoolmasters," 
says  George  Herbert,  "deliver  us  to  laws."  And 
probably  most  of  us  make  our  earliest  acquaintance 
with  these  impalpable  and  controlling  entities  when 
we  take  our  places  in  the  school.  There  our  pri- 
mary lesson  is  submission.  We  are  bidden  to  put 
away  personal  likings  and  see  how  in  themselves 
things  really  are.  Eight  times  nine  does  not  permit  it- 
self to  be  seventy-three  or  sixty-four,  but  exactly  and 
forever  seventy-two.  Cincinnati  lies  obstinately  on 
the  Ohio,  not  on  the  Mississippi,  and  it  is  nonsense 


MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS    55 

to  speak  of  Daniel  Webster  as  a  President  of  the 
United  States.  The  agreement  of  verbs  and  nouns, 
the  reactions  of  chemical  elements  were,  it  seems, 
settled  some  time  before  we  appeared.  They  pay 
little  attention  to  our  humors.  We  must  accept 
an  already  constituted  world  arid  adjust  our  little 
self  to  its  august  realities.  Of  course  the  process  is 
not  completed  at  school.  Begun  there,  it  continues 
throughout  life;  its  extent,  tenacity,  and  instanta- 
neous application  marking  the  degree  which  we 
reach  in  scientific  and  moral  culture.  Let  a  teacher 
attempt  to  lighten  the  task  of  himself  or  his  pupil 
by  accepting  an  inexact  observation,  a  slipshod 
remembrance,  a  careless  statement,  or  a  distorted 
truth,  and  he  will  corrupt  the  child's  character  no 
less  than  his  intelligence.  He  confirms  the  child's 
habit  of  intruding  himself  into  reality  and  of  remain- 
ing listless  when  ordained  facts  are  calling.  Edu^) 
cation  may  well  be  defined  as  the  banishment  of  I 
moods  at  the  bidding  of  the  permanently  real.  J 
But  to  acquire  such  obedient  alertness  persistence 
is  necessary,  and  in  gaining  it  a  child  wins  a  second 
victory  over  disorderly  nature.  By  this  he  becomes 
acquainted  not  merely  with  an  outer  world,  but  with 
a  still  stranger  object,  himself.  I  have  spoken  al- 
ready of  the  eagerness  of  young  desires.  They  are 
blind  and  disruptive  things.  One  of  them  pays  small 
heed  to  another,  but  each  blocks  the  other's  way, 


56    MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS 

preventing  anything  like  a  coherent  and  united  life. 
A  child  is  notoriously  a  creature  of  the  moment, 
looking  little  before  and  after.  He  must  be  taught  to 
dp  so  before  he  can  know  anything  or  be  anybody. 
A  school  matures  him  by  connecting  his  doings  of 
to-day  with  those  of  to-morrow.  Here  he  begins 
to  estimate  the  worth  of  the  present  by  noticing 
what  it  contributes  to  an  organic  plan.  Each 
hour  of  study  brings  precious  discipline  in  prefer- 
ring what  is  distantly  important  to  what  is  momen- 
tarily agreeable.  A  personal  being,  in  some  degree 
emancipated  from  time,  consequently  emerges,  and 
a  selfhood  appears,  built  up  through  enduring 
interests.  The  whole  process  is  in  the  teacher's 
charge.  It  is  his  to  enforce  diligence  and  so  to 
assist  the  vague  little  life  to  knit  itself  solidly  to- 
gether. 

Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that  to  become  each 
day  the  possessor  of  increasing  stores  of  novel  and 
interesting  truths  normally  brings  dignity  and  plea- 
sure. This  honorable  delight  reacts,  too,  on  the  pro- 
cess of  learning,  quickening  its  pace,  sharpening  its 
observation,  and  confirming  its  persistence.  It  is 
of  no  less  importance  for  the  character,  to  which  it 
imparts  ease,  courage,  beauty,  and  resourcefulness. 
But  on  the  teacher  it  will  depend  whether  such 
pleasure  is  found.  A  teacher  who  has  entered  deeply 
into  his  subject,  and  is  not  afraid  of  allowing  en- 


MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS    57 

thusiasm  to  appear,  will  make  the  densest  subject 
and  the  densest  pupil  glow ;  while  a  dull  teacher  can 
in  a  few  minutes  strip  the  most  engrossing  subject 
of  interest  and  make  the  diligence  exacted  in  its 
pursuit  deadening.  It  is  dangerous  to  dissociate 
toil  and  delight.  The  school  is  the  place  to  initiate 
their  genial  union.  Whoever  learns  there  to  love 
knowledge,  will  be  pretty  secure  of  becoming  an 
educated  and  useful  man  and  of  finding  satisfaction 
in  whatever  employment  may  afterwards  be  his. 

One  more  contribution  to  character  which  comes 
from  the  school  as  a  place  of  learning  I  will  mention  : 
it  should  create  a  sense  of  freedom.  Without  this 
both  learning  and  the  learner  are  distorted.  It  is 
not  enough  that  the  child  become  submissive  to  an 
already  constituted  world,  obedient  to  its  authori- 
tative organization;  not  enough  that  he  find  plea- 
sure in  it,  or  even  discover  himself  emerging,  as  one 
day's  diligence  is  bound  up  with  that  of  another.  All 
these  influences  may  easily  make  him  think  of  him- 
self as  a  passive  creature,  and  consequently  leave  him 
half  formed.  There  is  something  more.  Rightly 
does  the  Psalmist  call  the  fear  of  the  Lord  the  be- 
ginning of  wisdom  rather  than  its  end;  for  that 
education  is  defective  which  fashions  a  docile  and 
slavish  learner.  As  the  child  introduces  order  into 
his  previously  capricious  acts,  thoughts,  and  feelings, 
he  should  feel  in  himself  a  power  of  control  unknown 


58    MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS 

before,  and  be  encouraged  to  find  an  honorable 
use  for  his  very  peculiarities.  He  should  be  brought 
to  see  that  the  world  is  unfinished  and  needs  his 
joyful  cooperation,  that  it  has  room  for  individual 
activity  and  admits  rationally  constructed  purposes. 
From  his  earliest  years  a  child  should  be  encouraged 
to  criticise,  to  have  preferences,  and  to  busy  himself 
with  imaginative  constructions ;  for  all  this  develop- 
ment of  orderly  freedom  and  of  rejoicing  in  its  exer- 
cise is  building  up  at  once  both  knowledge  and  char- 
acter. 

II.  Yet  a  school  becomes  an  ethical  instrument 
not  merely  through  being  a  place  of  learning  but  be- 
cause it  is  also  a  social  unit.  It  is  a  cooperative  group, 
or  company  of  persons  pledged  every  instant  to  con- 
sider one  another,  their  common  purpose  being  jarred 
by  the  obtrusion  of  any  one's  dissenting  will.  Ac- 
cordingly much  that  is  proper  elsewhere  becomes 
improper  here.  As  soon  as  a  child  enters  a  school- 
room he  is  impressed  by  the  unaccustomed  silence. 
A  happy  idea  springs  in  his  mind  and  clamors  for 
the  same  outgo  it  would  have  at  home,  but  it  is 
restrained  in  deference  to  the  assembled  company. 
In  crossing  the  room  he  is  taught  to  tread  lightly, 
though  for  himself  a  joyous  dash  might  be  agreeable ; 
but  might  it  not  distract  the  attention  of  those  who 
are  studying  ?  The  school  begins  at  nine  o'clock  and 
each  recitation  at  its  fixed  hour,  these  times  being 


MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS    59 

no  better  than  others  except  as  facilitating  common 
corporate  action.  To  this  each  one's  private  ways 
become  adjusted.  The  subordination  of  each  to  all 
is  written  large  on  every  arrangement  of  school  life ; 
and  it  needs  must  be  so  if  there  is  to  be  moral  ad- 
vance. For  morality  itself  is  nothing  but  the  accept- 
ance of  such  habits  as  express  the  helpful  relations 
of  society  and  the  individual.  Punctuality,  order, 
quiet,  are  signs  that  the  child's  life  is  beginning  to 
be  socialized.  A  teacher  who  fails  to  impress  their 
elementary  righteousness  on  his  pupils  brutalizes 
every  child  in  his  charge. 

Such  relations  between  the  social  whole  and  the 
part  assume  a  variety  of  forms,  and  the  school  is  the 
best  place  for  introducing  a  child  to  their  niceties. 
Those  other  persons  whom  a  schoolboy  is  called  on 
continually  to  regard  may  be  either  his  superiors, 
equals,  or  inferiors.  To  each  we  have  specific  duties, 
expressed  in  an  appropriate  type  of  manners.  Our 
teachers  are  above  us,  —  above  us  in  age,  experi- 
ence, wisdom,  and  authority.  To  treat  them  as  com- 
rades is  unseemly.  Confession  of  their  superiority 
colors  all  our  approaches.  They  are  to  be  listened  to 
as  others  are  not.  Their  will  has  the  right  of  way. 
Our  bearing  toward  them,  however  trustful  or  even 
affectionate,  shows  a  respectfulness  somewhat  re- 
moved from  familiarity.  On  the  other  hand  school- 
mates are  comrades,  at  least  those  of  the  same  sex, 


60    MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS 

class,  strength,  and  intelligence.  Among  them  we 
assert  ourselves  freely,  yet  with  constant  care  to  se- 
cure no  less  freedom  for  them,  and  we  guard  them 
against  any  damage  or  annoyance  which  our  hasty 
assertiveness  might  cause.  In  case  of  clash  between 
their  interest  and  our  own,  ours  is  withdrawn.  And 
then  toward  those  who  are  below  us,  either  in  rank 
or  powers,  helpfulness  springs  forth.  We  are  eager 
to  bridge  over  the  separating  chasm  and  by  our  will 
to  abolish  hindering  defects.  These  three  types  of 
personal  adjustment  —  respect,  courtesy,  and  help- 
fulness, with  their  wide  variety  of  combination  — 
form  the  groundwork  of  all  good  manners.  In  their 
beginnings  they  need  prompting  and  oversight  from 
some  one  who  is  already  mature.  A  school  which 
neglects  to  cultivate  them  works  almost  irreparable 
injury  to  its  pupils.  For  if  these  possibilities  of  re- 
fined human  intercourse  are  not  opened  in  the  school 
years,  it  is  with  great  difficulty  they  are  arrived  at 
afterwards. 

The  spiritualizing  influence  of  the  school  as  a 
social  unit  is,  however,  not  confined  to  the  classroom. 
It  is  quite  as  active  on  the  playground.  There  a 
boy  learns  to  play  fair,  accustoms  himself  to  that 
greatest  of  social  ties,  I 'esprit  du  corps.  Throughout 
life  a  man  needs  continually  to  merge  his  own  inter- 
ests in  those  of  a  group.  He  must  act  as  the  father 
of  a  family,  an  operative  in  a  factory,  a  voter  of  Boston, 


MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS    61 

an  American  citizen,  a  member  of  an  engine  com- 
pany, union,  church,  or  business  firm.  His  own  small 
concerns  are  taken  up  into  these  larger  ones,  and 
devotion  to  them  is  not  felt  as  self-sacrifice.  A  pre- 
paration for  such  moral  ennoblement  is  laid  in  the 
sports  of  childhood.  What  does  a  member  of  the 
football  team  care  for  battered  shins  or  earth-scraped 
hands  ?  His  side  has  won,  and  his  own  gains  and 
losses  are  forgotten.  Soon  his  team  goes  forth  against 
an  outside  team,  and  now  the  honor  of  the  whole 
school  is  in  his  keeping.  What  pride  is  his !  As  he 
puts  on  his  uniform,  he  strips  off  his  isolated  person- 
ality and  stands  forth  as  the  trusted  champion  of  an 
institution.  Nor  does  this  august  supersession  of  the 
private  consciousness  by  the  public  arise  in  connec- 
tion with  sports  alone.  As  a  member  of  the  school, 
a  boy  acts  differently  from  what  he  otherwise  would. 
There  is  a  standard  of  conduct  recognized  as  suitable 
for  a  Washington  School  boy,  and  from  it  his  own 
does  not  widely  depart.  For  good  or  for  ill  each 
school  has  its  ideals  of  "good  form"  which  are 
compulsive  over  its  members  and  are  handed  on 
from  class  to  class.  To  assist  in  moulding,  refining, 
and  maintaining  these  is  the  weightiest  work  of  a 
schoolmaster.  For  these  ideals  have  about  them  the 
sacredness  of  what  is  traditional,  institutional,  and 
are  of  an  unseen,  august,  and  penetrative  power, 
comparable  to  nothing  else  in  character-formation. 


62    MORAL  INSTRUCTION   IN  SCHOOLS 

To  modify  them  ever  so  slightly  a  teacher  should 
be  content  to  work  for  years. 

III.  A  third  aspect  of  the  school  I  have  called  its 
character  as  a  Dependent  Fellowship,  and  I  have 
said  that  this  is  merely  incidental.  A  highly  important 
incident  it  is,  however,  and  one  that  never  fails  to 
recur.  What  I  would  indicate  by  the  dark  phrase  is 
this:  in  every  school  an  imperfect  life  is  associated 
with  one  similar  but  more  advanced,  one  from  which 
it  perpetually  receives  influences  that  are  not  offi- 
cial nor  measurable  in  money  payment.  A  teacher 
is  hired  primarily  to  teach,  and  with  a  view  also  to 
his  ability  to  keep  order  throughout  his  little  society 
and  to  make  his  authority  respected  there.  But  side 
by  side  with  these  public  duties  runs  the  expression 
of  his  personality.  This  is  his  own,  something  which 
he  hides  or  discloses  at  his  pleasure.  To  his  pupils, 
however,  he  must  always  appear  in  the  threefold 
character  of  teacher,  master,  and  developed  human 
being;  while  they  correspondingly  present  them- 
selves to  him  as  pupils,  members  of  the  school,  and 
elementary  human  beings.  Of  these  pairs  of  rela- 
tionships two  are  contrasted  and  supplemental,  — 
teacher  and  pupil,  master  and  scholar,  having  no- 
thing in  common,  each  being  precisely  what  the 
other  is  not.  As  human  beings,  however,  pupil  and 
teacher  are  akin  and  removed  from  one  another 
merely  by  the  degree  of  progress  made  by  the  elder 


MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS    63 

along  a  common  path.  Here  then  the  relation  is  one 
of  fellowship,  but  a  fellowship  where  the  younger 
is  largely  dependent  on  the  older  for  an  understand- 
ing of  what  he  should  be.  By  example,  friendship, 
and  personal  influence  a  teacher  is  certain  to  affect 
for  good  or  ill  every  member  of  his  school.  In 
any  account  of  the  school  as  an  ethical  instrument 
this  subtlest  of  its  moral  agencies  deserves  careful 
analysis. 

There  are  different  sorts  of  example.  I  may  ob- 
serve how  the  shopman  does  up  a  package,  and  do 
one  so  myself  the  next  morning.  A  companion  may 
have  a  special  inflection  of  voice,  which  I  may  catch. 
I  may  be  drawn  to  industry  by  seeing  how  steadily 
my  classmate  studies.  I  may  adopt  a  phrase,  a  smile, 
or  a  polite  gesture,  which  was  originally  my  teacher's. 
All  these  are  cases  of  direct  imitation.  Some  one 
possesses  a  trait  or  an  act  which  is  passed  over  entire 
to  another  person,  by  whom  it  is  substituted  for  one 
of  his  own.  Though  the  adoption  of  such  alien  ways 
is  dangerous,  society  could  hardly  go  on  without  it. 
It  is  its  mode  of  transmitting  what  is  supposed  to  be 
already  tested  and  of  lodging  it  in  the  lives  of  per- 
sons of  less  experience,  with  the  least  cost  to  the  re- 
ceivers. Most  teachers  will  have  habits  which  their 
pupils  may  advantageously  copy.  Yet  supposing  the 
imitated  ways  altogether  good,  which  they  seldom 
are,  direct  imitation  is  questionable  as  disregarding 


64    MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS 

the  particular  character  of  him  in  whom  the  ways 
are  found  and  in  assuming  that  they  will  be  equally 
appropriate  if  engrafted  on  anybody.  But  this  is 
far  from  true,  and  consequently  he  who  imitates 
much  is,  or  soon  will  be,  a  weakling.  On  the  whole, 
a  teacher  needs  to  guard  his  pupils  against  his  imi- 
table  peculiarities.  If  sensible,  he  will  snub  whoever 
is  disposed  to  repeat  them. 

Still,  there  is  a  noble  sort  of  imitation,  and  that 
school  is  a  poor  place  where  it  does  not  go  on.  Cer- 
tain persons  have  a  strange  power  of  invigorating 
us  by  their  presence.  When  with  them,  we  can  do 
what  seems  impossible  alone.  They  are  our  examples 
rather  as  wholes,  and  in  their  strength  and  spirit,  than 
in  their  single  traits  or  acts ;  and  so  whatever  is  most 
distinctive  of  ourselves  becomes  renewed  through  con- 
tact with  them.  It  was  said  of  the  late  Dr.  Jowett 
that  he  sent  out  more  pupils  who  were  widely  un- 
like himself  than  any  Oxford  teacher  of  his  time. 
That  is  enviable  praise;  for  the  wholesomeness  of 
example  is  tested  by  inquiring  whether  it  develops 
differences  or  has  only  the  power  of  duplicating  the 
original.  Every  teacher  knows  how  easy  it  is  to  send 
out  cheap  editions  of  himself,  and  in  his  weaker 
moments  he  inclines  to  issue  them.  But  it  is  ignoble 
business.  Our  manners  and  tones  and  phrases  and 
the  ways  we  have  of  doing  this  and  that  are  after  all 
valuable  only  as  expressions  of  ourselves.  For  any- 


MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS    65 

body  else  they  are  rubbish.  What  we  should  like  to 
impart  is  that  earnestness,  accuracy,  unselfishness, 
candor,  reverence  for  God's  laws,  and  sturdiness 
through  hardship,  toward  which  we  aspire  —  mat- 
ters in  reality  only  half  ours  and  which  spring  up 
with  fresh  and  original  beauty  in  every  soul  where 
they  once  take  root.  The  Dependent  Fellowship 
of  a  school  makes  these  larger,  enkindling,  and  di- 
versifying influences  peculiarly  possible.  It  should 
be  a  teacher's  highest  ambition  to  exercise  them. 
And  though  we  might  naturally  expect  that  such 
inspiring  teachers  would  be  rare,  I  seldom  enter  a 
school  without  finding  indications  of  the  presence  of 
at  least  one  of  them. 

But  for  those  who  would  acquire  this  larger  in- 
fluence a  strange  caution  is  necessary:  Examples 
do  not  work  that  are  not  real.  We  sometimes  try 
to  "set  an  example,"  that  is,  to  put  on  a  type  of  char- 
acter for  the  benefit  of  a  beholder ;  and  are  usually 
disappointed.  Personal  influence  is  not  an  affair  of 
acting,  but  of  being.  Those  about  us  are  strangely 
affected  by  what  we  veritably  are,  only  slightly  by 
what  we  would  have  them  see.  If  we  are  indisposed 
to  study,  yet,  knowing  that  industry  is  good  for  our 
scholars,  assume  a  bustling  diligence,  they  are  more 
likely  to  feel  the  real  portion  of  the  affair,  our  lazi- 
ness, than  the  activity  which  was  designed  for  their 
copying.  Astonishingly  shrewd  are  the  young  at 


66    MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS 

scenting  humbug  and  being  unaffected  by  its  pre- 
tensions. There  is  consequently  no  method  to  be 
learned  for  gaining  personal  influence.  Almost  every- 
thing else  requires  plan  and  effort.  This  precious 
power  needs  little  attention.  It  will  not  come  in  one 
way  better  than  another.  A  fair  measure  of  sympa- 
thetic tact  is  useful  for  starting  it;  but  in  the  long 
run  persons  rude  and  suave,  talkative  and  silent, 
handsome  and  ugly,  stalwart  and  slight,  possess  it 
in  about  equal  degree,  the  very  characteristics  which 
we  should  be  disposed  to  count  disadvantageous 
often  seeming  to  confirm  its  hold.  Since  it- gener- 
ally comes  about  that  our  individual  interests  be- 
come in  some  measure  those  of  our  pupils  too, 
the  only  safe  rule  for  personal  influence  is  to  go 
heartily  about  our  own  affairs,  with  a  friendly  spirit, 
and  let  our  usual  nature  have  whatever  effect  it 
may. 

Still,  there  is  one  important  mode  of  preparation : 
seeing  that  personal  influence  springs  from  what 
we  are,  we  can  really  be  a  good  deal.  In  a  former 
paper,  on  The  Ideal  Teacher,  I  pointed  this  out 
and  insisted  that  to  be  of  any  use  in  the  classroom 
we  teachers  must  bring  there  an  already  accumu- 
lated wealth.  I  will  not  repeat  what  I  have  said  al- 
ready, for  a  little  reflection  will  convince  any  one 
that  when  he  lacks  personal  influence  he  lacks  much 
besides.  A  great  example  comes  from  a  great  nature, 


MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS    67 

and  we  who  live  in  fellowship  with  dependent  and 
imitative  youth  should  acquire  natures  large  enough 
to  serve  both  their  needs  and  our  own.  Let  teachers 
be  big,  bounteous,  and  unconventional,  and  they 
will  have  few  backward  pupils. 

Personal  influence  is  often  assumed  to  be  greater 
the  closer  the  intimacy.  I  believe  the  contrary  to 
be  the  case.  Familiarity,  says  the  shrewd  proverb, 
breeds  contempt.  And  certainly  the  young,  who  are 
little  trained  in  estimating  values,  when  brought 
into  close  association  with  their  elders  are  apt  to  fix 
their  attention  on  petty  points  and  so  to  miss  the 
larger  lines  of  character.  These  they  see  best  across 
an  interval  where,  though  visible  only  in  outline, 
they  are  clear,  unconfused  with  anything  else,  and 
so  productive  of  their  best  effect.  For  the  immature, 
distance  is  a  considerable  help  in  inducing  enchant- 
ment, and  nothing  is  so  destructive  of  high  influence 
as  a  slap-on-the-back  acquaintance.  One  who  is  to 
help  us  much  must  be  above  us.  A  teacher  should 
carefully  respect  his  own  dignity  and  no  less  carefully 
that  of  his  pupil.  In  our  eagerness  to  help,  we  may 
easily  cheapen  a  fine  nature  by  intruding  too  fre- 
quently into  its  reserves ;  and  on  the  other  hand  I  have 
observed  that  the  boy  who  comes  oftenest  for  advice 
is  he  who  profits  by  it  least.  It  is  safest  not  to  meddle 
much  with  the  insides  of  our  pupils.  An  occasional 
weighty  word  is  more  compulsive  than  frequent  talk. 


68    MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS 

Within  the  limits  then  here  marked  out  we  who 
live  in  these  Dependent  Fellowships  must  submit  to 
be  admired.  We  must  allow  our  pupils  to  idealize 
us  and  even  offer  ourselves  for  imitation.  It  is  not 
pleasant.  Usually  nobody  knows  his  weaknesses 
better  than  the  one  who  is  mistaken  for  an  example. 
But  what  a  helpful  mistake !  What  ennobling  influ- 
ences come  to  schoolboys  when  once  they  can  think 
their  teacher  is  the  sort  of  person  they  would  like  to 
be !  Perhaps  at  the  very  moment  that  teacher  is  think- 
ing they  are  the  sort  of  person  he  would  like  to  be. 
No  matter.  What  they  admire  is  worthy,  even  if  not 
embodied  precisely  where  they  imagine.  In  humility 
we  accept  their  admiration,  knowing  that  nothing 
else  can  so  enlarge  their  lives.  As  I  recall  my  college 
days,  there  rise  before  me  two  teachers.  As  I  en- 
tered the  lecture  rooms  of  those  two  men,  I  said  to 
myself,  "Oh,  if  some  day  I  could  be  like  that !"  And 
always  afterwards  as  I  went  to  those  respective 
rooms,  the  impression  of  dignity  deepened.  I  have 
forgotten  the  lessons  I  learned  from  those  instructors. 
I  never  can  discharge  my  debt  to  the  instructors 
themselves. 

Such  are  the  moral  resources  of  our  schools. 
Without  turning  aside  in  the  slightest  from  their 
proper  aim  of  imparting  knowledge,  teachers  are 
able,  —  almost  compelled  —  to  supply  their  pupils 
with  an  intellectual,  social,  and  personal  righteous- 


MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS    69 

ness.  What  more  is  wanted  ?  When  such  opportuni- 
ties for  moral  instruction  are  already  within  their 
grasp,  is  it  worth  while  to  incur  the  grave  dangers  of 
ethical  instruction  too  ?  I  think  not,  and  I  even  fear 
that  the  establishment  of  courses  in  moral  theory 
might  weaken  the  sense  of  responsibility  among  the 
other  teachers  and  lead  them  to  attach  less  impor- 
tance to  the  moralization  of  their  pupils  by  them- 
selves. This  is  burdensome  business,  no  doubt,  but 
we  must  not  shift  it  to  a  single  pair  of  shoulders. 
Rather  let  us  insist,  when  bad  boys  and  girls  con- 
tinue in  a  school,  that  the  blame  belongs  to  the  teach- 
ers as  a  whole,  and  not  to  some  ethical  coach.  It  is 
from  the  management  and  temper  of  a  school  that  its 
formative  influence  proceeds.  We  cannot  safely  turn 
over  anything  so  all-pervading  to  the  instructors  of 
a  single  department.  That  school  where  neatness, 
courtesy,  simplicity,  obtain;  where  enthusiasm  goes 
with  mental  exactitude,  thoroughness  of  work  with 
interest,  and  absence  of  artificiality  with  refinement ; 
where  sneaks,  liars,  loafers,  pretenders,  rough  per- 
sons are  despised,  while  teachers  who  refuse  to  be 
mechanical  hold  sway  —  that  school  is  engaged  in 
moral  training  all  day  long. 

Yet  while  I  hold  that  the  systematic  study  of 
ethics  had  on  the  whole  better  be  left  to  the  colleges, 
I  confess  that  the  line  which  I  have  attempted  to 
draw  between  consciousness  and  unconsciousness, 


70    MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS 

between  the  age  which  is  best  directed  by  instinct 
and  the  age  when  the  questioning  faculties  put  for- 
ward their  inexorable  demands,  is  a  wavering  one  and 
cannot  be  sharply  drawn.  By  one  child  it  is  crossed 
at  one  period,  by  another  at  another.  Seldom  is  the 
crossing  noticed.  Before  we  are  aware  we  find  our- 
selves in  sorrow  on  the  farther  side.  Happy  the  youth 
who  during  the  transition  time  has  a  wise  friend  at 
hand  to  answer  a  question,  to  speak  a  steadying 
word,  to  open  up  the  vista  which  at  the  moment 
needs  to  be  cleared.  Only  one  in  close  personal  touch 
is  serviceable  here.  But  in  defect  of  home  guidance, 
to  us  teachers  falls  much  of  the  charge  of  developing 
the  youthful  consciousness  of  moral  matters  naturally, 
smoothly,  and  without  jar.  This  has  always  been  a 
part  of  the  teacher's  office.  So  far  as  I  can  ascertain 
schools  of  the  olden  time  had  in  them  a  large  amount 
of  wholesome  ethical  training.  Schools  were  unsys- 
tematic then  ;  there  lay  no  examination  paper  ahead 
of  them;  there  was  time  for  pause  and  talk.  If  a 
subject  arose  which  the  teacher  deemed  important 
for  his  pupils'  personal  lives,  he  could  lead  them 
on  to  question  about  it,  so  far  as  he  believed  dis- 
cussion useful.  This  sort  of  ethical  training  the 
hurry  of  our  time  has  largely  exterminated;  and 
now  that  wholesome  incidental  instruction  is  gone, 
we  demand  in  the  modern  way  that  a  clear-cut  de- 
partment of  ethics  be  introduced  into  the  curricu- 


MORAL  INSTRUCTION  IN  SCHOOLS    71 

lum.  But  such  things  do  not  let  themselves  be' 
treated  in  departmental  fashion.  The  teacher  must 
still  work  as  a  friend.  He  cannot  be  discharged 
from  knowing  when  and  how  to  stimulate  a  ques- 
tion, from  discerning  which  boy  or  girl  would 
be  helped  by  consciousness  and  which  would  be 
harmed.  In  these  high  regions  our  pupils  cannot 
be  approached  in  classes.  They  require  individual 
attention.  And  not  because  we  are  teachers  merely, 
but  because  we  and  they  are  human  beings,  we 
must  be  ready  with  spiritual  aid. 


IV 

SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH 

ENGLISH  study  has  four  aims :  the  mastery  of  our 
language  as  a  science,  as  a  history,  as  a  joy,  and  as 
a  tool.  I  am  concerned  with  but  one,  the  mastery  of 
it  as  a  tool.  Philology  and  grammar  present  it  as  a 
science;  the  one  attempting  to  follow  its  words,  the 
other  its  sentences,  through  all  the  intricacies  of  their 
growth,  and  so  to  manifest  laws  which  lie  hidden  in 
these  airy  products  no  less  than  in  the  moving  stars 
or  the  myriad  flowers  of  spring.  Fascinating  and  im- 
portant as  all  this  is,  I  do  not  recommend  it  here. 
For  I  want  to  call  attention  only  to  that  sort  of  Eng- 
lish study  which  can  be  carried  on  without  any  large 
apparatus  of  books.  For  a  reason  similar,  though 
less  cogent,  I  do  not  urge  historical  study.  Probably 
the  current  of  English  literature  is  more  attractive 
through  its  continuity  than  that  of  any  other  nation. 
Notable  works  in  verse  and  prose  have  appeared  in 
long  succession,  and  without  gaps  intervening,  in  a 
way  that  would  be  hard  to  parallel  in  any  other  lan- 
guage known  to  man.  A  bounteous  endowment  this 
for  every  English  speaker,  and  one  which  should 
stimulate  us  to  trace  the  marvellous  and  close-linked 


SELF-CULTIVATION   IN  ENGLISH    73 

progress  from  the  times  of  the  Saxons  to  those  of 
Tennyson  and  Kipling.  Literature  too  has  this  ad- 
vantage over  every  other  species  of  art  study,  that 
everybody  can  examine  the  original  masterpieces 
and  not  depend  on  reproductions,  as  in  the  cases  of 
painting,  sculpture,  and  architecture ;  or  on  interme- 
diate interpretation,  as  in  the  case  of  music.  To-day 
most  of  these  masterpieces  can  be  bought  for  a  trifle, 
and  even  a  poor  man  can  follow  through  centuries  the 
thoughts  of  his  ancestors.  But  even  so,  ready  of  ac- 
cess as  it  is,  English  can  be  studied  as  a  history  only 
at  the  cost  of  solid  time  and  continuous  attention, 
much  more  time  than  the  majority  of  those  for  whom 
I  am  writing  can  afford.  By  most  of  us  our  mighty 
literature  cannot  be  taken  in  its  continuous  current, 
the  later  stretches  proving  interesting  through  relation 
with  the  earlier.  It  must  be  taken  fragmentarily,  if 
at  all,  the  attention  delaying  on  those  parts  only  which 
offer  the  greatest  beauty  or  promise  the  best  exhila- 
ration. In  other  words,  English  may  be  possible  as  a 
joy  where  it  is  not  possible  as  a  history.  In  the  end- 
less wealth  which  our  poetry,  story,  essay,  and  drama 
afford,  every  disposition  may  find  its  appropriate  nu- 
triment, correction,  or  solace.  He  is  unwise,  however 
busy,  who  does  not  have  his  loved  authors,  veritable 
friends  with  whom  he  takes  refuge  in  the  intervals 
of  work  and  by  whose  intimacy  he  enlarges,  refines, 
sweetens,  and  emboldens  his  own  limited  existence. 


74     SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH 

Yet  the  fact  that  English  as  a  joy  must  largely  be  con- 
ditioned by  individual  taste  prevents  me  from  offering 
general  rules  for  its  pursuit.  The  road  which  leads 
one  man  straight  to  this  joy  leads  another  to  tedium. 
In  all  literary  enjoyment  there  is  something  incalcula-' 
ble,  something  wayward,  eluding  the  precision  of 
rule,  and  rendering  inexact  the  precepts  of  him  who 
would  point  out  the  path  to  it.  While  I  believe  that 
many  suggestions  may  be  made,  useful  to  the  young 
enjoyer  and  promotive  of  his  wise  vagrancy,  I  shall 
not  undertake  here  the  complicated  task  of  offering 
them.  Let  enjoyment  go,  let  history  go,  let  science 
go,  and  still  English  remains  —  English  as  a  tool. 
Every  hour  our  language  is  an  engine  for  communi- 
cating with  others,  every  instant  for  fashioning  the 
thoughts  of  our  own  minds.  I  want  to  call  attention 
to  the  means  of  mastering  this  curious  and  essential 
tool,  and  to  lead  every  one  who  reads  me  to  become 
discontented  with  his  employment  of  it. 

The  importance  of  literary  power  needs  no  long 
argument.  Everybody  acknowledges  it,  and  sees  that 
without  it  all  other  human  faculties  are  maimed. 
Shakespeare  says  that  death-bringing  time  "insults 
o'er  dull  and  speechless  tribes."  It  and  all  who  live  in 
it  insult  over  the  speechless  person.  So  mutually  de- 
pendent are  we  that  on  our  swift  and  full  communica- 
tion with  one  another  is  staked  the  success  of  almost 
every  scheme  we  form.  He  who  can  explain  himself 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN   ENGLISH     75 

may  command  what  he  wants.  He  who  cannot  is  left 
to  the  poverty  of  individual  resource ;  for  men  do  what 
we  desire  only  when  persuaded.  The  persuasive  and 
explanatory  tongue  is,  therefore,  one  of  the  chief 
levers  of  life.  Its  leverage  is  felt  within  us  as  well  as 
without,  for  expression  and  thought  are  integrally 
bound  together.  We  do  not  first  possess  completed 
thoughts  and  then  express  them.  The  very  forma- 
tion of  the  outward  product  extends,  sharpens,  en- 
riches the  mind  which  produces,  so  that  he  who  gives 
forth  little  after  a  time  is  likely  enough  to  discover 
that  he  has  little  to  give  forth.  By  expression  too  we 
may  carry  our  benefits  and  our  names  to  a  far  gen- 
eration. This  durable  character  of  fragile  language 
puts  a  wide  difference  of  worth  between  it  and  some 
of  the  other  great  objects  of  desire,  —  health,  wealth, 
and  beauty,  for  example.  These  are  notoriously  liable 
to  accident.  We  tremble  while  we  have  them.  But 
literary  power,  once  ours,  is  more  likely  than  any 
other  possession  to  be  ours  always.  It  perpetuates 
and  enlarges  itself  by  the  very  fact  of  its  existence 
and  perishes  only  with  the  decay  of  the  man  himself. 
For  this  reason,  because  more  than  health,  wealth, 
and  beauty,  literary  style  may  be  called  the  man,  good 
judges  have  found  in  it  the  final  test  of  culture  and 
have  said  that  he,  and  he  alone,  is  a  well-educated  per- 
son who  uses  his  language  with  power  and  beauty. 
The  supreme  and  ultimate  product  of  civilization,  it 


76     SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH 

has  well  been  said,  is  two  or  three  persons  talking 
together  in  a  room.  Between  ourselves  and  our  lan- 
guage there  accordingly  springs  up  an  association 
peculiarly  close.  We  are  as  sensitive  to  criticism 
of  our  speech  as  of  our  manners.  The  young  man 
looks  up  with  awe  to  him  who  has  written  a  book,  as 
already  half  divine;  and  the  graceful  speaker  is  a 
universal  object  of  envy. 

But  the  very  fact  that  literary  endowment  is  im- 
mediately recognized  and  eagerly  envied  has  induced 
a  strange  illusion  in  regard  to  it.  It  is  supposed  to 
be  something  mysterious,  innate  in  him  who  pos- 
sesses it  and  quite  out  of  the  reach  of  him  who  has  it 
not.  The  very  contrary  is  the  fact.  No  human  em- 
ployment is  more  free  and  calculable  than  the  win- 
ning of  language.  Undoubtedly  there  are  natural 
aptitudes  for  it,  as  there  are  for  farming,  seaman- 
ship, or  being  a  good  husband.  But  nowhere  is 
straight  work  more  effective.  Persistence,  care,  dis- 
criminating observation,  ingenuity,  refusal  to  lose 
heart,  —  traits  which  in  every  other  occupation  tend 
toward  excellence,  —  tend  toward  it  here  with  special 
security.  Whoever  goes  to  his  grave  with  bad  Eng- 
lish in  his  mouth  has  no  one  to  blame  but  himself  for 
the  disagreeable  taste ;  for  if  faulty  speech  can  be  in- 
herited, it  can  be  exterminated  too.  I  hope  to  point 
out  some  of  the  methods  of  substituting  good  English 
for  bad.  And  since  my  space  is  brief,  and  I  wish  to 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH     77 

be  remembered,  I  throw  what  I  have  to  say  into  the 
form  of  four  simple  precepts  which,  if  pertinaciously 
obeyed,  will,  I  believe,  give  anybody  effective  mastery 
of  English  as  a  tool. 

First  then,  "Look  well  to  your  speech."  It  is 
commonly  supposed  that  when  a  man  seeks  literary 
power  he  goes  to  his  room  and  plans  an  article  for 
the  press.  But  this  is  to  begin  literary  culture  at 
the  wrong  end.  We  speak  a  hundred  times  for  every 
once  we  write.  The  busiest  writer  produces  little 
more  than  a  volume  a  year,  not  so  much  as  his  talk 
would  amount  to  in  a  week.  Consequently  through 
speech  it  is  usually  decided  whether  a  man  is  to  have 
command  of  his  language  or  not.  If  he  is  slovenly 
in  his  ninety-nine  cases  of  talking,  he  can  seldom 
pull  himself  up  to  strength  and  exactitude  in  the 
hundredth  case  of  writing.  A  person  is  made  in  one 
piece,  and  the  same  being  runs  through  a  multitude 
of  performances.  Whether  words  are  uttered  on 
paper  or  to  the  air,  the  effect  on  the  utterer  is  the 
same.  Vigor  or  feebleness  results  according  as  energy 
or  slackness  has  been  in  command.  I  know  that 
certain  adaptations  to  a  new  field  are  often  necessary. 
A  good  speaker  may  find  awkwardnesses  in  himself 
when  he  comes  to  write,  a  good  writer  when  he 
speaks.  And  certainly  cases  occur  where  a  man  ex- 
hibits distinct  strength  in  one  of  the  two,  speaking 
or  writing,  and  not  in  the  other.  But  such  cases  are 


78     SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH 

rare.  As  a  rule,  language  once  within  our  control 
can  be  employed  for  oral  or  for  written  purposes. 
\And  since  the  opportunities  for  oral  practice  enor- 
mously outbalance  those  for  written,  it  is  the  oral 
which  are  chiefly  significant  in  the  development  of 
literary  power.  We  rightly  say  of  the  accomplished 
writer  that  he  shows  a  mastery  of  his  own  tongue. 

This  predominant  influence  of  speech  marks  nearly 
all  great  epochs  of  literature.  The  Homeric  poems 
are  addressed  to  the  ear,  not  to  the  eye.  It  is  doubt- 
ful if  Homer  knew  writing,  certain  that  he  knew 
profoundly  every  quality  of  the  tongue,  —  veracity, 
vividness,  shortness  of  sentence,  simplicity  of  thought, 
obligation  to  insure  swift  apprehension.  Writing  and 
rigidity  are  apt  to  go  together.  In  Homer's  smooth- 
slipping  verses  one  catches  everywhere  the  voice.  So 
too  the  aphorisms  of  Hesiod  might  naturally  pass 
from  mouth  to  mouth,  and  the  stories  of  Herodotus 
be  told  by  an  old  man  at  the  fireside.  Early  Greek  lit- 
erature is  plastic  and  garrulous.  Its  distinctive  glory 
is  that  it  contains  no  literary  note ;  that  it  gives  forth 
human  feeling  not  in  conventional  arrangement,  but 
with  apparent  spontaneity  —  in  short,  that  it  is  speech 
literature,  not  book  literature.  And  the  same  ten- 
dency continued  long  among  the  Greeks.  At  the  cul- 
mination of  their  power  the  drama  was  their  chief 
literary  form,  —  the  drama,  which  is  but  speech  en- 
nobled, connected,  clarified.  Plato  too,  following  the 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH     79 

dramatic  precedent  and  the  precedent  of  his  talking 
master,  accepted  conversation  as  his  medium  for  phi- 
losophy and  imparted  to  it  the  vivacity,  ease,  way- 
wardness even,  which  the  best  conversation  exhibits. 
Nor  was  the  experience  of  the  Greeks  peculiar.  Our 
literature  shows  a  similar  tendency.  Its  bookish  times 
are  its  decadent  times,  its  talking  times  its  glory. 
Chaucer,  like  Herodotus,  is  a  story-teller,  and  follows 
the  lead  of  those  who  on  the  Continent  entertained 
courtly  circles  with  pleasant  tales.  Shakespeare  and 
his  fellows  in  the  spacious  times  of  great  Elizabeth 
did  not  concern  themselves  with  publication.  Mar- 
ston  in  one  of  his  prefaces  thinks  it  necessary  to 
apologize  for  putting  his  piece  in  print,  and  says  he 
would  not  have  done  such  a  thing  if  unscrupulous 
persons,  hearing  the  play  at  the  theatre,  had  not 
already  printed  corrupt  versions  of  it.  Even  the 
Queen  Anne's  men,  far  removed  though  they  are 
from  anything  dramatic,  still  shape  their  ideals  of 
literature  by  demands  of  speech.  The  essays  of  the 
Spectator,  the  poems  of  Pope,  are  the  remarks  of 
a  cultivated  gentleman  at  an  evening  party.  Here 
is  the  brevity,  the  good  taste,  the  light  touch,  the 
neat  epigram,  the  avoidance  of  whatever  might  stir 
passion,  controversy,  or  laborious  thought,  which 
characterize  the  conversation  of  a  well-bred  man.  In- 
deed it  is  hard  to  see  how  any  literature  can  be  long 
vital  which  is  based  on  the  thought  of  a  book  and 


80    SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH 

not  on  that  of  living  utterance.  Unless  the  speech 
notion  is  uppermost,  words  will  not  run  swiftly  to 
their  mark.  They  delay  in  delicate  phrasings  while 
naturalness  and  a  sense  of  reality  disappear.  Women 
are  the  best  talkers.  I  sometimes  please  myself  with 
noticing  that  three  of  the  greatest  periods  of  English 
literature  coincide  with  the  reigns  of  the  three  Eng- 
lish queens. 

Fortunate  it  is,  then,  that  self-cultivation  in  the 
use  of  English  must  chiefly  come  through  speech ;  be- 
cause we  are  always  speaking,  whatever  else  we  do. 
In  opportunities  for  acquiring  a  mastery  of  language 
the  poorest  and  busiest  are  at  no  large  disadvantage 
as  compared  with  the  leisured  rich.  It  is  true  the 
strong  impulse  which  comes  from  the  suggestion  and 
approval  of  society  may  in  some  cases  be  absent,  but 
this  can  be  compensated  by  the  sturdy  purpose  of  the 
learner.  A  recognition  of  the  beauty  of  well-ordered 
words,  a  strong  desire,  patience  under  discourage- 
ments, and  promptness  in  counting  every  occasion 
as  of  consequence,  —  these  are  the  simple  agencies 
which  sweep  one  on  to  power.  Watch  your  speech 
then.  That  is  all  which  is  needed.  Only  it  is  desir- 
able to  know  what  qualities  of  speech  to  watch  for. 
I  find  three,  —  accuracy,  audacity,  and  range, —  and 
I  will  say  a  few  words  about  each. 

Obviously,  good  English  is  exact  English.  Our 
words  should  fit  our  thoughts  like  a  glove  and  be 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH     81 

neither  too  wide  nor  too  tight.  If  too  wide,  they  will 
include  much  vacuity  beside  the  intended  matter.  If 
too  tight,  they  will  check  the  strong  grasp.  Of  the 
two  dangers,  looseness  is  by  far  the  greater.  There 
are  people  who  say  what  they  mean  with  such  a  naked 
precision  that  nobody  not  familiar  with  the  subject 
can  quickly  catch  the  sense.  George  Herbert  and 
Emerson  strain  the  attention  of  many.  But  niggardly 
and  angular  speakers  are  rare.  Too  frequently  words 
signify  nothing  in  particular.  They  are  merely  thrown 
out  in  a  certain  direction  to  report  a  vague  and  unde- 
termined meaning  or  even  a  general  emotion.  The 
first  business  of  every  one  who  would  train  himself 
in  language  is  to  articulate  his  thought,  to  know  defi- 
nitely what  he  wishes  to  say,  and  then  to  pick  those 
words  which  compel  the  hearer  to  think  of  this  and 
only  this.  For  such  a  purpose  two  words  are  often 
better  than  three.  The  fewer  the  words,  the  more 
pungent  the  impression.  Brevity  is  the  soul,  not 
simply  of  a  jest,  but  of  wit  in  its  finer  sense  where 
it  is  identical  with  wisdom.  He  who  can  put  a  great 
deal  into  a  little  is  the  master.  Since  firm  texture  is 
what  is  wanted,  not  embroidery  or  superposed  orna- 
ment, beauty  has  been  well  defined  as  the  purgation 
of  superfluities.  And  certainly  many  a  paragraph 
might  have  its  beauty  brightened  by  letting  quiet 
words  take  the  place  of  its  loud  words,  omitting  its 
"verys,"  and  striking  out  its  purple  patches  of  fine 


82     SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH 

writing.  Here  is  Ben  Jonson's  description  of  Bacon's 
language:  "There  happened  in  my  time  one  noble 
speaker  who  was  full  of  gravity  in  his  speech.  No 
man  ever  spoke  more  neatly,  more  pressly,  more 
weightily,  or  suffered  less  emptiness,  less  idleness,  in 
what  he  uttered.  No  member  of  his  speech  but  con- 
sisted of  his  own  graces.  His  hearers  could  not  cough 
or  look  aside  without  loss.  He  commanded  when  he 
spoke,  and  had  his  judges  angry  or  pleased  at  his  dis- 
cretion." Such  are  the  men  who  command,  men  who 
speak  "neatly  and  pressly."  But  to  gain  such  pre- 
cision is  toilsome  business.  While  we  are  in  training 
for  it,  no  word  must  unpermittedly  pass  the  portal  of 
the  teeth.  Something  like  what  we  mean  must  never 
be  counted  equivalent  to  what  we  mean.  And  if  we 
are  not  sure  of  our  meaning  or  of  our  word,  we  must 
pause  until  we  are  sure.  Accuracy  does  not  come  of 
itself.  For  persons  who  can  use  several  languages, 
capital  practice  in  acquiring  it  can  be  had  by  trans- 
lating from  one  language  to  another  and  seeing  that 
the  entire  sense  is  carried  over.  Those  who  have 
only  their  native  speech  will  find  it  profitable  often 
to  attempt  definitions  of  the  common  words  they  use. 
Inaccuracy  will  not  stand  up  against  the  habit  of  defi- 
nition. Dante  boasted  that  no  rhythmic  exigency 
had  ever  made  him  say  what  he  did  not  mean.  We 
heedless  and  unintending  speakers,  under  no  exigency 
of  rhyme  or  reason,  say  what  we  mean  but  seldom, 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH    83 

and  still  more  seldom  mean  what  we  say.  To  hold 
our  thoughts  and  words  in  significant  adjustment  re- 
quires unceasing  consciousness,  a  perpetual  determi- 
nation not  to  tell  lies ;  for  of  course  every  inaccuracy 
is  a  bit  of  untruthfulness.  We  have  something  in 
mind,  yet  convey  something  else  to  our  hearer.  And 
no  moral  purpose  will  save  us  from  this  untruthful- 
ness  unless  that  purpose  is  sufficient  to  inspire  the 
daily  drill  which  brings  the  power  to  be  true.  Again 
and  again  we  are  shut  up  to  evil  because  we  have  not 
acquired  the  ability  of  goodness. 

But  after  all,  I  hope  that  nobody  who  hears  me 
will  quite  agree.  There  is  something  enervating  in 
conscious  care.  Necessary  as  it  is  in  shaping  our  pur- 
poses, if  allowed  too  direct  and  exclusive  control  con- 
sciousness breeds  hesitation  and  feebleness.  Action 
is  not  excellent,  at  least,  until  spontaneous.  In  piano- 
playing  we  begin  by  picking  out  each  separate  note; 
but  we  do  not  call  the  result  music  until  we  play  our 
notes  by  the  handful,  heedless  how  each  is  formed. 
And  so  it  is  everywhere.  Consciously  selective  con- 
duct is  elementary  and  inferior.  People  distrust  it,  or 
rather  they  distrust  him  who  exhibits  it.  If  anybody 
talking  to  us  visibly  studies  his  words,  we  turn  away. 
What  he  says  may  be  well  enough  as  school  exercise, 
but  it  is  not  conversation.  Accordingly,  if  we  would 
have  our  speech  forcible,  we  shall  need  to  put  into  it 
quite  as  much  of  audacity  as  we  do  of  precision,  terse- 


84     SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH 

ness,  or  simplicity.  Accuracy  alone  is  not  a  thing  to 
be  sought,  but  accuracy  and  dash.  It  was  said  of 
Fox,  the  English  orator  and  statesman,  that  he  was 
accustomed  to  throw  himself  headlong  into  the  middle 
of  a  sentence,  trusting  to  God  Almighty  to  get  him 
out.  So  must  we  speak.  We  must  not  before  begin- 
ning a  sentence  decide  what  the  end  shall  be ;  for  if  we 
do,  nobody  will  care  to  hear  that  end.  At  the  begin- 
ning, it  is  the  beginning  which  claims  the  attention 
of  both  speaker  and  listener,  and  trepidation  about 
going  on  will  mar  all.  We  must  give  our  thought  its 
head,  and  not  drive  it  with  too  tight  a  rein,  nor  grow 
timid  when  it  begins  to  prance  a  bit.  Of  course  we 
must  retain  coolness  in  courage,  applying  the  results 
of  our  previous  discipline  in  accuracy;  but  we  need 
not  move  so  slowly  as  to  become  formal.  Pedantry 
is  worse  than  blundering.  If  we  care  for  grace  and 
flexible  beauty  of  language,  we  must  learn  to  let  our 
thought  run.  Would  it,  then,  be  too  much  of  an  Irish 
bull  to  say  that  in  acquiring  English  we  need  to  cul- 
tivate spontaneity?  The  uncultivated  kind  is  not 
worth  much;  it  is  wild  and  haphazard  stuff,  unad- 
justed to  its  uses.  On  the  other  hand  no  speech  is  of 
much  account,  however  just,  which  lacks  the  element 
of  courage.  Accuracy  and  dash,  then,  the  combina- 
tion of  the  two,  must  be  our  difficult  aim;  and  we 
must  not  rest  satisfied  so  long  as  either  dwells  with 
us  alone. 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH     85 

But  are  the  two  so  hostile  as  they  at  first  appear  ? 
Or  can,  indeed,  the  first  be  obtained  without  the  aid 
of  the  second  ?  Supposing  we  are  convinced  that 
words  possess  no  value  in  themselves,  and  are  correct 
or  incorrect  only  as  they  truly  report  experience,  we 
shall  feel  ourselves  impelled  in  the  mere  interest  of 
accuracy  to  choose  them  freshly  and  to  put  them  to- 
gether in  ways  in  which  they  never  cooperated  before, 
so  as  to  set  forth  with  distinctness  that  which  just 
we,  not  other  people,  have  seen  or  felt.  The  reason 
why  we  do  not  naturally  have  this  daring  exacti- 
tude is  probably  twofold.  We  let  our  experiences  be 
blurred,  not  observing  sharply,  nor  knowing  with  any 
minuteness  what  we  are  thinking  about;  and  so  there 
is  no  individuality  in  our  language.  And  then,  be- 
sides, we  are  terrorized  by  custom  and  inclined  to 
adjust  what  we  would  say  to  what  others  have  said 
before.  The  cure  for  the  first  of  these  troubles  is  to 
keep  our  eye  on  our  object,  instead  of  on  our  listener 
or  ourselves ;  and  for  the  second,  to  learn  to  rate  the 
expressiveness  of  language  more  highly  than  its  cor- 
rectness. The  opposite  of  this,  the  disposition  to 
set  correctness  above  expressiveness,  produces  that 
peculiarly  vulgar  diction  known  as  "school-ma'am 
English,"  in  which  for  the  sake  of  a  dull  accord  with 
usage  all  the  picturesque,  imaginative  and  forceful 
employment  of  words  is  sacrificed.  Of  course  we 
must  use  words  so  that  people  can  understand  them, 


86     SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH 

and  understand  them  too  with  ease;  but  this  once 
granted,  let  our  language  be  our  own,  obedient  to  our 
special  needs.  "  Whenever,"  says  Thomas  Jefferson, 
"  by  small  grammatical  negligences  the  energy  of  an 
idea  can  be  condensed,  or  a  word  be  made  to  stand 
for  a  sentence,  I  hold  grammatical  rigor  in  contempt," 
"  Young  man,"  said  Henry  Ward  Beecher  to  one  who 
was  pointing  out  grammatical  errors  in  a  sermon  of 
his,  "  when  the  English  language  gets  in  my  way,  it 
does  n't  stand  a  chance."  No  man  can  be  convincing, 
writer  or  speaker,  who  is  afraid  to  send  his  words 
wherever  they  may  best  follow  his  meaning,  and  this 
with  but  little  regard  to  whether  any  other  person's 
words  have  ever  been  there  before.  In  assessing 
merit  let  us  not  stupefy  ourselves  with  using  nega- 
tive standards.  What  stamps  a  man  as  great  is  not 
freedom  from  faults,  but  abundance  of  powers. 

Such  audacious  accuracy,  however,  distinguishing 
as  it  does  noble  speech  from  commonplace  speech, 
can  be  practised  only  by  him  who  has  a  wide  range 
of  words.  Our  ordinary  range  is  absurdly  narrow. 
It  is  important,  therefore,  for  anybody  who  would 
cultivate  himself  in  English  to  make  strenuous  and 
systematic  efforts  to  enlarge  his  vocabulary.  Our 
dictionaries  contain  more  than  a  hundred  thousand 
words.  The  average  speaker  employs  about  three 
thousand.  Is  this  because  ordinary  people  have  only 
three  or  four  thousand  things  to  say  ?  Not  at  all. 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH     87 

It  is  simply  due  to  dulness.  Listen  to  the  average 
schoolboy.  He  has  a  dozen  or  two  nouns,  half  a 
dozen  verbs,  three  or  four  adjectives,  and  enough 
conjunctions  and  prepositions  to  stick  the  conglom- 
erate together.  This  ordinary  speech  deserves  the 
description  which  Hobbes  gave  to  his  "  State  of  Na- 
ture," that  "it  is  solitary,  poor,  nasty,  brutish  and 
short."  The  fact  is,  we  fall  into  the  way  of  thinking 
that  the  wealthy  words  are  for  others  and  that  they 
do  not  belong  to  us.  We  are  like  those  who  have 
received  a  vast  inheritance,  but  who  persist  in  the 
inconveniences  of  hard  beds,  scanty  food,  rude  cloth- 
ing, who  never  travel,  and  who  limit  their  purchases 
to  the  bleak  necessities  of  life.  Ask  such  people 
why  they  endure  niggardly  living  while  wealth  in 
plenty  is  lying  in  the  bank,  and  they  can  only  an- 
swer that  they  have  never  learned  how  to  spend.  But 
this  is  worth  learning.  Milton  used  eight  thousand 
words,  Shakespeare  fifteen  thousand.  We  have  all 
the  subjects  to  talk  about  that  these  early  speakers 
had ;  and  in  addition  we  have  bicycles  and  sciences 
and  strikes  and  political  combinations  and  all  the 
complicated  living  of  the  modern  world. 

Why  then  do  we  hesitate  to  swell  our  words  to 
meet  our  needs  ?  It  is  a  nonsense  question.  There 
is  no  reason.  We  are  simply  lazy,  too  lazy  to  make 
ourselves  comfortable.  We  let  our  vocabularies  be 
limited  and  get  along  rawly  without  the  refinements 


88     SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH 

of  human  intercourse,  without  refinements  in  our  own 
thoughts;  for  thoughts  are  almost  as  dependent 
on  words  as  words  on  thoughts.  For  example,  all 
exasperations  we  lump  together  as  "aggravating," 
not  considering  whether  they  may  not  rather  be  dis- 
pleasing, annoying,  offensive,  disgusting,  irritating, 
or  even  maddening;  and  without  observing  too  that 
in  our  reckless  usage  we  have  burned  up  a  word 
which  might  be  convenient  when  we  should  need  to 
mark  some  shading  of  the  word  "  increase."  Like 
the  bad  cook,  we  seize  the  frying-pan  whenever  we 
need  to  fry,  broil,  roast,  or  stew,  and  then  we  won- 
der why  all  our  dishes  taste  alike  while  in  the  next 
house  the  food  is  appetizing.  It  is  all  unnecessary. 
Enlarge  the  vocabulary.  Let  any  one  who  wants  to 
see  himself  grow  resolve  to  adopt  two  new  words 
each  week.  It  will  not  be  long  before  the  endless 
and  enchanting  variety  of  the  world  will  begin  to  re- 
flect itself  in  his  speech,  and  in  his  mind  as  well.  I 
know  that  when  we  use  a  word  for  the  first  time  we 
are  startled,  as  if  a  fire-cracker  went  off  in  our  neigh- 
borhood. We  look  about  hastily  to  see  if  any  one 
has  noticed.  But  finding  that  no  one  has,  we  may  be 
emboldened.  A  word  used  three  times  slips  off  the 
tongue  with  entire  naturalness.  Then  it  is  ours  for- 
ever, and  with  it  some  phase  of  life  which  had  been 
lacking  hitherto.  For  each  word  presents  its  own 
point  of  view,  discloses  a  special  aspect  of  things,  re- 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH    89 

ports  some  little  importance  not  otherwise  conveyed, 
and  so  contributes  its  small  emancipation  to  our 
tied-up  minds  and  tongues. 

But  a  brief  warning  may  be  necessary  to  make  my 
meaning  clear.  In  urging  the  addition  of  new  words 
to  our  present  poverty-stricken  stock  I  am  far  from 
suggesting  that  we  should  seek  out  strange,  technical 
or  inflated  expressions,  which  do  not  appear  in  or- 
dinary conversation.  The  very  opposite  is  my  aim. 
I  would  put  every  man  who  is  now  employing  a  dic- 
tion merely  local  and  personal  in  command  of  the 
approved  resources  of  the  English  language.  Our 
poverty  usually  comes  through  provinciality,  through 
accepting  without  criticism  the  habits  of  our  special 
set.  My  family,  my  immediate  friends,  have  a  dic- 
tion of  their  own.  Plenty  of  other  words,  recognized 
as  sound,  are  known  to  be  current  in  books  and  to  be 
employed  by  modest  and  intelligent  speakers,  only  we 
do  not  use  them.  Our  set  has  never  said  "  diction," 
or  "  current,"  or  "  scope,"  or  "  scanty,"  or  "  hitherto," 
or  "  convey,"  or  "  lack."  Far  from  unusual  as  these 
words  are,  to  adopt  them  might  seem  to  set  me  apart 
from  those  whose  intellectual  habits  I  share.  From 
this  I  shrink.  I  do  not  like  to  wear  clothes  suitable 
enough  for  others,  but  not  in  the  style  of  my  own 
plain  circle.  Yet  if  each  one  of  that  circle  does  the 
same,  the  general  shabbiness  is  increased.  The  talk 
of  all  is  made  narrow  enough  to  fit  the  thinnest  there. 


90     SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH 

What  we  should  seek  is  to  contribute  to  each  of  the 
little  companies  with  which  our  life  is  bound  up  a 
gently  enlarging  influence,  such  impulses  as  will  not 
startle  or  create  detachment,  but  which  may  save  from 
humdrum,  routine  and  dreary  usualness.  We  cannot 
be  really  kind  without  being  a  little  venturesome. 
The  small  shocks  of  our  increasing  vocabulary  will  in 
all  probability  be  as  helpful  to  our  friends  as  to  our- 
selves. 

Such  then  are  the  excellences  of  speech.  If  we 
would  cultivate  ourselves  in  the  use  of  English,  we 
must  make  our  daily  talk  accurate,  daring  and  full. 
I  have  insisted  on  these  points  the  more  because  in 
my  judgment  all  literary  power,  especially  that  of 
busy  men,  is  rooted  in  sound  speech.  But  though  the 
roots  are  here,  the  growth  is  also  elsewhere.  And  I 
pass  to  my  later  precepts,  which,  if  the  earlier  one 
has  been  laid  well  to  heart,  will  require  only  brief 
discussion. 

Secondly,  "Welcome  every  opportunity  for  writ- 
ing." Important  as  I  have  shown  speech  to  be,  there 
is  much  that  it  cannot  do.  Seldom  can  it  teach  struc- 
ture. Its  space  is  too  small.  Talking  moves  in  sen- 
tences, and  rarely  demands  a  paragraph.  I  make  my 
little  remark,  —  a  dozen  or  two  words,  —  then  wait  for 
my  friend  to  hand  me  back  as  many  more.  This  gen- 
tle exchange  continues  by  the  hour ;  but  either  of  us 
would  feel  himself  unmannerly  if  he  should  grasp  an 


•      SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH     91 

entire  five  minutes  and  make  it  uninterruptedly  his. 
That  would  not  be  speaking,  but  rather  speech-mak- 
ing. The  brief  groupings  of  words  which  make  up 
our  talk  furnish  capital  practice  in  precision,  boldness 
and  variety ;  but  they  do  not  contain  room  enough  for 
exercising  our  .constructive  faculties.  Considerable 
length  is  necessary  if  we  are  to  learn  how  to  set  forth 
B  in  right  relation  to  A  on  the  one  hand  and  to  C  on 
the  other ;  and  while  keeping  each  a  distinct  part,  are 
to  be  able  through  their  smooth  progression  to  weld 
all  the  parts  together  into  a  compacted  whole.  Such 
wholeness  is  what  we  mean  by  literary  form.  Lack- 
ing it,  any  piece  of  writing  is  a  failure;  because  in 
truth  it  is  not  a  piece,  but  pieces.  For  ease  of  read- 
ing, or  for  the  attainment  of  an  intended  effect,  unity 
is  essential  —  the  multitude  of  statements,  anecdotes, 
quotations,  arguings,  gay  sportings  and  appeals,  all 
"bending  one  way  their  gracious  influence."  And 
this  dominant  unity  of  the  entire  piece  obliges  unity 
also  in  the  subordinate  parts.  Not  enough  has  been 
done  when  we  have  huddled  together  a  lot  of  wan- 
dering sentences  and  penned  them  in  a  paragraph, 
or  even  when  we  have  linked  them  together  by  the 
frail  ties  of  "and,  and."  A  sentence  must  be  com- 
pelled to  say  a  single  thing;  a  paragraph,  a  single 
thing ;  an  essay,  a  single  thing.  Each  part  is  to  be  a 
preliminary  whole  and  the  total  a  finished  whole. 
But  the  ability  to  construct  one  thing  out  of  many 


92     SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH 

does  not  come  by  nature.  It  implies  fecundity,  re- 
straint, an  eye  for  effects,  the  forecast  of  finish  while 
we  are  still  working  in  the  rough,  obedience  to  the 
demands  of  development  and  a  deaf  ear  to  whatever 
calls  us  into  the  by-paths  of  caprice ;  in  short  it  im- 
plies that  the  good  writer  is  to  be  an  artist. 

Now  something  of  this  large  requirement  which 
composition  makes,  the  young  writer  instinctively 
feels,  and  he  is  terrified.  He  knows  how  ill-fitted  he 
is  to  direct  "toil  cooperant  to  an  end";  and  when 
he  sits  down  to  the  desk  and  sees  the  white  sheet  of 
paper  before  him,  he  shivers.  Let  him  know  that  the 
shiver  is  a  suitable  part  of  the  performance.  I  well 
remember  the  pleasure  with  which,  as  a  young  man,  I 
heard  my  venerable  and  practised  professor  of  rheto- 
ric say  that  he  supposed  there  was  no  work  known 
to  man  more  difficult  than  writing.  Up  to  that  time 
I  had  supposed  its  severities  peculiar  to  myself.  It 
cheered  me,  and  gave  me  courage  to  try  again,  to 
learn  that  I  had  all  mankind  for  my  fellow  sufferers. 
Where  this  is  not  understood,  writing  is  avoided. 
From  such  avoidance  I  would  save  the  young  writer 
by  my  precept  to  seek  every  opportunity  to  write. 
For  most  of  us  this  is  a  new  way  of  confronting  com- 
position —  treating  it  as  an  opportunity,  a  chance,  and 
not  as  a  burden  or  compulsion.  It  saves  from  slavish- 
ness  and  takes  away  the  drudgery  of  writing,  to  view 
each  piece  of  it  as  a  precious  and  necessary  step  in 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH     93 

the  pathway  to  power.  To  those  engaged  in  bread- 
winning  employments  these  opportunities  will  be  few. 
Spring  forward  to  them,  then,  using  them  to  the  full. 
Severe  they  will  be  because  so  few,  for  only  practice 
breeds  ease;  but  on  that  very  account  let  no  one  of 
them  pass  with  merely  a  second-best  performance. 
If  a  letter  is  to  be  written  to  a  friend,  a  report  to  an 
employer,  a  communication  to  a  newspaper,  see  that 
it  has  a  beginning,  a  middle  and  an  end.  The  ma- 
jority of  writings  are  without  these  pleasing  adorn- 
ments. Only  the  great  pieces  possess  them.  Bear 
this  in  mind  and  win  the  way  to  artistic  composition 
by  noticing  what  should  be  said  first,  what  second 
and  what  third. 

I  cannot  leave  this  subject,  however,  without  con- 
gratulating the  present  generation  on  its  advantages 
over  mine.  Children  are  brought  up  to-day,  in  happy 
contrast  with  my  compeers,  to  feel  that  the  pencil  is 
no  instrument  of  torture,  hardly  indeed  to  distinguish 
it  from  the  tongue.  About  the  time  they  leave  their 
mother's  arms  they  take  their  pen  in  hand.  On  paper 
they  are  encouraged  to  describe  their  interesting 
birds,  friends,  adventures.  Their  written  lessons  are 
almost  as  frequent  as  their  oral,  and  they  learn  to 
write  compositions  while  not  yet  quite  understanding 
what  they  are  about.  Some  of  these  fortunate  ones 
will,  I  hope,  find  the  language  I  have  sadly  used  about 
the  difficulty  of  writing  extravagant.  And  let  me  say 


94     SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH 

too  that  since  frequency  has  more  to  do  with  ease  of 
writing  than  anything  else,  I  count  the  newspaper 
men  lucky  because  they  are  writing  all  the  time,  and  I 
do  not  think  so  meanly  of  their  product  as  the  present 
popular  disparagement  would  seem  to  require.  It 
is  hasty  work  undoubtedly  and  bears  the  marks  of 
haste.  But  in  my  judgment,  at  no  period  of  the  Eng- 
lish language  has  there  been  so  high  an  average  of 
sensible,  vivacious  and  informing  sentences  written  as 
appears  in  our  daily  press.  With  both  good  and  evil 
results,  the  distinction  between  book  literature  and 
speech  literature  is  breaking  down.  Everybody  is 
writing,  apparently  in  verse  and  prose;  and  if  the 
higher  graces  of  style  do  not  often  appear,  neither  on 
the  other  hand  do  the  ruder  awkwardnesses  and 
obscurities.  A  certain  straightforward  English  is  be- 
coming established.  A  whole  nation  is  learning  the 
use  of  its  mother  tongue.  Under  such  circumstances 
it  is  doubly  necessary  that  any  one  who  is  conscious  of 
feebleness  in  his  command  of  English  should  promptly 
and  earnestly  begin  the  cultivation  of  it. 

My  third  precept  shall  be,  "  Remember  the  other 
person."  I  have  been  urging  self-cultivation  in  Eng- 
lish as  if  it  concerned  one  person  alone,  ourself. 
But  every  utterance  really  concerns  two.  Its  aim 
is  social.  Its  object  is  communication ;  and  while 
unquestionably  prompted  halfway  by  the  desire  to 
ease  our  mind  through  self-expression,  it  still  finds 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH     95 

its  only  justification  in  the  advantage  somebody  else 
will  draw  from  what  is  said.  Speaking  or  writing 
is,  therefore,  everywhere  a  double-ended  process.  It 
springs  from  me,  it  penetrates  him ;  and  both  of  these 
ends  need  watching.  Is  what  I  say  precisely  what 
I  mean  ?  That  is  an  important  question.  Is  what  I 
say  so  shaped  that  it  can  readily  be  assimilated  by 
him  who  hears  ?  This  is  a  question  of  quite  as  great 
consequence  and  much  more  likely  to  be  forgotten. 
We  are  so  full  of  ourselves  that  we  do  not  remember 
the  other  person.  Helter-skelter  we  pour  forth  our 
unaimed  words  merely  for  our  personal  relief,  heed- 
less whether  they  help  or  hinder  him  whom  they  still 
purport  to  address.  For  most  of  us  are  grievously 
lacking  in  imagination,  which  is  the  ability  to  go  out- 
side ourselves  and  take  on  the  conditions  of  another 
mind.  Yet  this  is  what  the  literary  artist  is  always 
doing.  He  has  at  once  the  ability  to  see  for  himself 
and  the  ability  to  see  himself  as  others  see  him.  He 
can  lead  two  lives  as  easily  as  one  life ;  or  rather,  he 
has  trained  himself  to  consider  that  other  life  as  of 
more  importance  than  his,  and  to  reckon  his  com- 
fort, likings  and  labors  as  quite  subordinated  to  the 
service  of  that  other.  All  serious  literary  work  con- 
tains within  it  this  readiness  to  bear  another's  burden. 
I  must  write  with  pains,  that  he  may  read  with  ease. 

I  must 

Find  out  men's  wants  and  wills, 
And  meet  them  there. 


96    SELF-CULTIVATION   IN  ENGLISH 

As  I  write,  I  must  unceasingly  study  what  is  the  line 
of  least  intellectual  resistance  along  which  my  thought 
may  enter  the  differently  constituted  mind ;  and  to 
that  line  I  must  subtly  adjust,  without  enfeebling, 
my  meaning.  Will  this  combination  of  words  or  that 
make  the  meaning  clear  ?  Will  this  order  of  presen- 
tation facilitate  swiftness  of  apprehension,  or  will  it 
clog  the  movement?  What  temperamental  perversi- 
ties in  me  must  be  set  aside  in  order  to  render  my 
reader's  approach  to  what  I  would  tell  him  pleasant  ? 
What  temperamental  perversities  in  him  must  be  ac- 
cepted by  me  as  fixed  facts,  conditioning  all  I  say? 
These  are  the  questions  the  skilful  writer  is  always 
asking. 

And  these  questions,  as  will  have  been  perceived 
already,  are  moral  questions  no  less  than  literary. 
That  golden  rule  of  generous  service  by  which  we 
do  for  others  what  we  would  have  them  do  for  us  is 
a  rule  of  writing  too.  Every  writer  who  knows  his 
trade  perceives  that  he  is  a  servant,  that  it  is  his 
business  to  endure  hardship  if  only  his  reader  may 
win  freedom  from  toil,  that  no  impediment  to  that 
reader's  understanding  is  too  slight  to  deserve  dili- 
gent attention,  that  he  has  consequently  no  right  to 
let  a  single  sentence  slip  from  him  unsocialized  —  I 
mean,  a  sentence  which  cannot  become  as  naturally 
another's  possession  as  his  own.  In  the  very  act  of 
asserting  himself  he  lays  aside  what  is  distinctively 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH     97 

his.  And  because  these  qualifications  of  the  writer 
are  moral  qualifications  they  can  never  be  com- 
pletely fulfilled  so  long  as  we  live  and  write.  We 
may  continually  approximate  them  more  nearly,  but 
there  will  still  always  be  possible  an  alluring  refine- 
ment of  exercise  beyond.  The  world  of  the  literary 
artist  and  the  moral  man  is  interesting  through  its 
inexhaustibility;  and  he  who  serves  his  fellows  by 
writing  or  by  speech  is  artist  and  moral  man  in  one. 
Writing  a  letter  is  a  simple  matter,  but  it  is  a  moral 
matter  and  an  artistic;  for  it  may  be  done  either 
with  imagination  or  with  raw  self-centredness.  What 
things  will  my  correspondent  wish  to  know  ?  How 
can  I  transport  him  out  of  his  properly  alien  sur- 
roundings into  the  vivid  impressions  which  now  are 
mine  ?  How  can  I  tell  all  I  long  to  tell  and  still  be 
sure  the  telling  will  be  for  him  as  lucid  and  delight- 
ful as  for  me  ?  Remember  the  other  person,  I  say. 
Do  not  become  absorbed  in  yourself.  Your  interests 
cover  only  the  half  of  any  piece  of  writing ;  the  other 
man's  less  visible  half  is  necessary  to  complete  yours. 
And  if  I  have  here  discussed  writing  more  than  speech, 
that  is  merely  because  when  we  speak  we  utter  our 
first  thoughts,  but  when  we  write,  our  second,  —  or 
better  still,  our  fourth ;  and  in  the  greater  deliberation 
which  writing  affords  I  have  felt  that  the  demands  of 
morality  and  art,  which  are  universally  imbedded  in 
language,  could  be  more  distinctly  perceived.  Yet 


98     SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH 

none  the  less  truly  do  we  need  to  talk  for  the  other 
person  than  to  write  for  him. 

But  there  remains  a  fourth  weighty  precept,  and 
one  not  altogether  detachable  from  the  third.  It 
is  this:  "Lean  upon  the  subject."  We  have  seen 
how  the  user  of  language,  whether  in  writing  or  in 
speaking,  works  for  himself;  how  he  works  for  an- 
other individual  too ;  but  there  is  one  more  for  whom 
his  work  is  performed,  one  of  greater  consequence 
than  any  person,  and  that  is  his  subject.  From  this 
comes  his  primary  call.  Those  who  in  their  utter- 
ance fix  their  thoughts  on  themselves,  or  on  other 
selves,  never  reach  power.  That  resides  in  the  sub- 
ject. There  we  must  dwell  with  it  and  be  content 
to  have  no  other  strength  than  its.  When  the  fright- 
ened schoolboy  sits  down  to  write  about  Spring,  he 
cannot  imagine  where  the  thoughts  which  are  to  make 
up  his  piece  are  to  come  from.  He  cudgels  his  brain 
for  ideas.  He  examines  his  pen-point,  the  curtains, 
his  inkstand,  to  see  if  perhaps  ideas  may  not  be  had 
from  these.  He  wonders  what  his  teacher  will  wish 
him  to  say  and  he  tries  to  recall  how  the  passage 
sounded  in  the  Third  Reader.  In  every  direction  but 
one  he  turns,  and  that  is  the  direction  where  lies  the 
prime  mover  of  his  toil,  his  subject.  Of  that  he  is 
afraid.  Now,  what  I  want  to  make  evident  is  that 
this  subject  is  not  in  reality  the  foe,  but  the  friend. 
It  is  his  only  helper.  His  composition  is  not  to  be, 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH    99 

as  he  seems  to  suppose,  a  mass  of  his  laborious  inven- 
tions, but  it  is  to  be  made  up  exclusively  of  what  the 
subject  dictates.  He  has  only  to  attend.  At  present 
he  stands  in  his  own  way,  making  such  a  din  with 
his  private  anxieties  that  he  cannot  hear  the  rich  sug- 
gestions of  the  subject.  He  is  bothered  with  consid- 
ering how  he  feels,  or  what  he  or  somebody  else  will 
like  to  see  on  his  paper.  This  is  debilitating  busi- 
ness. He  must  lean  on  his  subject,  if  he  would  have 
his  writing  strong,  and  busy  himself  with  what  it 
says  rather  than  with  what  he  would  say.  Matthew 
Arnold,  in  the  important  preface  to  his  poems  of  1853, 
contrasting  the  artistic  methods  of  Greek  poetry  and 
modern  poetry,  sums  up  the  teaching  of  the  Greeks 
in  these  words:  "All  depends  upon  the  subject; 
choose  a  fitting  action,  penetrate  yourself  with  the 
feeling  of  its  situations;  this  done,  everything  else 
will  follow."  And  he  calls  attention  to  the  self-as- 
sertive and  scatter-brained  habits  of  our  time.  "  How 
different  a  way  of  thinking  from  this  is  ours!  We 
can  hardly  at  the  present  day  understand  what  Me- 
nander  meant  when  he  told  a  man  who  inquired  as 
to  the  progress  of  his  comedy  that  he  had  finished  it, 
not  having  yet  written  a  single  line,  because  he  had 
constructed  the  action  of  it  in  his  mind.  A  modern 
critic  would  have  assured  him  that  the  merit  of  his 
piece  depended  on  the  brilliant  things  which  arose 
under  his  pen  as  he  went  along.  I  verily  think  that 


100   SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH 

the  majority  of  us  do  not  in  our  hearts  believe  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  total- impression  to  be  de- 
rived from  a  poem  or  to  be  demanded  from  a  poet. 
We  permit  the  poet  to  select  any  action  he  pleases 
and  to  suffer  that  action  to  go  as  it  will,  provided 
he  gratifies  us  with  occasional  bursts  of  fine  writing 
and  with  a  shower  of  isolated  thoughts  and  images." 
Great  writers  put  themselves  and  their  personal  im- 
aginings out  of  sight.  Their  writing  becomes  a  kind 
of  transparent  window  on  which  reality  is  reflected, 
and  through  which  people  see,  not  them,  but  that  of 
which  they  write.  How  much  we  know  of  Shake- 
speare's characters !  How  little  of  Shakespeare !  Of 
him  that  might  almost  be  said  which  Isaiah  said  of 
God,  "He  hideth  himself."  The  best  writer  is  the 
best  mental  listener,  the  one  who  peers  farthest  into 
his  matter  and  most  fully  heeds  its  behests.  Pre- 
eminently obedient  is  such  a  writer,  —  refinedly, 
energetically  obedient.  I  once  spent  a  day  with  a 
great  novelist  when  the  book  which  subsequently 
proved  his  masterpiece  was  only  half  written.  I 
praised  his  mighty  hero,  but  said  I  should  think  the 
life  of  an  author  would  be  miserable  who,  having  cre- 
ated a  character  so  huge,  now  had  him  in  hand  and 
must  find  something  for  him  to  do.  My  friend  seemed 
puzzled  by  my  remark,  but  after  a  moment's  pause 
said,  "  I  don't  think  you  know  how  we  work.  I  have 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH    101 

nothing  to  do  with  the  character.  Now  that  he  is 
created  he  will  act  as  he  will." 

And  such  docility  must  be  cultivated  by  every  one 
who  would  write  well,  such  strenuous  docility.  Of 
course  there  must  be  energy  in  plenty;  the  imagina- 
tion which  I  described  in  my  third  section,  the  pas- 
sion for  solid  form  as  in  my  second,  the  disciplined 
and  daring  powers  as  in  my  first ;  but  all  these  must 
be  ready  at  a  moment's  notice  to  move  where  the 
matter  calls  and  to  acknowledge  that  all  their  worth 
is  to  be  drawn  from  it.  Religion  is  only  enlarged 
good  sense,  and  the  words  of  Jesus  apply  as  well 
to  the  things  of  earth  as  of  heaven.  I  do  not  know 
where  we  could  find  a  more  compendious  statement  of 
what  is  most  important  for  one  to  learn  who  would 
cultivate  himself  in  English  than  the  saying  in  which 
Jesus  announces  the  source  of  his  power,  "The 
word  which  ye  hear  is  not  mine,  but  the  Father's 
which  sent  me."  Whoever  can  use  such  words  will 
be  a  noble  speaker  indeed. 

These  then  are  the  fundamental  precepts  which 
every  one  must  heed  who  would  command  our  beauti- 
ful English  language.  There  is  of  course  a  fifth.  I 
hardly  need  name  it;  for  it  always  follows  after, 
whatever  others  precede.  It  is  that  we  should  do  the 
work, .and  not  think  about  it;  do  it  day  after  day  and 
not  grow  weary  in  bad  doing.  Early  and  often  we 
must  be  busy  and  be  satisfied  to  have  a  great  deal  of 


102    SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH 

labor  produce  but  a  small  result.  I  am  told  that  early 
in  life  John  Morley,  wishing  to  engage  in  journal- 
ism, wrote  an  editorial  and  sent  it  to  a  paper  every 
day  for  nearly  a  year  before  he  succeeded  in  getting 
one  accepted.  We  all  know  what  a  power  he  became 
in  London  journalism.  I  will  not  vouch  for  the  truth 
of  this  story,  but  I  am  sure  an  ambitious  author  is 
wise  who  writes  a  weekly  essay  for  his  stove.  Publi- 
cation is  of  little  consequence  so  long  as  one  is  getting 
one's  self  hammered  into  shape. 

But  before  I  close  this  paper  let  me  acknowledge 
that  in  it  I  have  neglected  a  whole  class  of  helpful 
influences,  probably  quite  as  important  as  any  I  have 
discussed.  Purposely  I  have  passed  them  by.  Be- 
cause I  wished  to  show  what  we  can  do  for  ourselves, 
I  have  everywhere  assumed  that  our  cultivation  in 
English  is  to  be  effected  by  naked  volition  and  a  kind 
of  dead  lift.  These  are  mighty  agencies,  but  seldom  in 
this  interlocked  world  do  they  work  well  alone.  They 
are  strongest  when  backed  by  social  suggestion  and 
unconscious  custom.  Ordinarily  the  good  speaker  is 
he  who  keeps  good  company,  but  increases  the  helpful 
influence  of  that  company  by  constant  watchfulness 
along  the  lines  I  have  marked  out.  So  supplemented, 
my  teaching  is  true.  By  itself  it  is  not  true.  It 
needs  the  supplementation  of  others.  Let  him  who 
would  speak  or  write  well  seek  out  good  speakers 
and  writers.  Let  him  live  in  their  society,  —  for  the 


SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH    103 

society  of  the  greatest  writers  is  open  to  the  most 
secluded, — let  him  feel  the  ease  of  their  excellence, 
the  ingenuity,  grace  and  scope  of  their  diction,  and  he 
will  soon  find  in  himself  capacities  whose  development 
may  be  aided  by  the  precepts  I  have  given.  Most 
of  us  catch  better  than  we  learn.  We  take  up  uncon- 
sciously from  our  surroundings  what  we  cannot  alto- 
gether create.  All  this  should  be  remembered,  and 
we  should  keep  ourselves  exposed  to  the  wholesome 
words  of  our  fellow  men.  Yet  our  own  exertions  will 
not  on  that  account  be  rendered  less  important.  We 
may  largely  choose  the  influences  to  which  we  submit ; 
we  may  exercise  a  selective  attention  among  these  in- 
fluences ;  we  may  enjoy,  oppose,  modify,  or  diligently 
ingraft  what  is  conveyed  to  us,  —  and  for  doing  any 
one  of  these  things  rationally  we  must  be  guided  by 
some  clear  aim.  Such  aims,  altogether  essential  even 
if  subsidiary,  I  have  sought  to  supply ;  and  I  would 
reiterate  that  he  who  holds  them  fast  may  become 
superior  to  linguistic  fortune  and  be  the  wise  director 
of  his  sluggish  and  obstinate  tongue.  It  is  as  certain 
as  anything  can  be  that  faithful  endeavor  will  bring 
expertness  in  the  use  of  English.  If  we  are  watchful 
of  our  speech,  making  our  words  continually  more 
minutely  true,  free  and  resourceful ;  if  we  look  upon 
our  occasions  of  writing  as  opportunities  for  the  de- 
liberate work  of  unified  construction;  if  in  all  our 
utterances  we  think  of  him  who  hears  as  well  as  of 


104    SELF-CULTIVATION  IN  ENGLISH 

him  who  speaks ;  and  above  all,  if  we  fix  the  attention 
of  ourselves  and  our  hearers  on  the  matter  we  talk 
about  and  so  let  ourselves  be  supported  by  our  subject 
—  we  shall  make  a  daily  advance  not  only  in  Eng- 
lish study,  but  in  personal  power,  in  general  service- 
ableness  and  in  consequent  delight. 


DOUBTS  ABOUT  UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION1 

A  STEP  has  lately  been  taken  in  American  educa- 
tion which  excites  the  interest  and  hopes  of  us  all. 
England  has  been  our  teacher,  — England  and  a  per- 
suasive apostle  from  that  country.  A  few  years  ago 
the  English  universities  became  discontented  with 
their  isolation.  For  generations  they  had  been  devot- 
ing themselves  to  a  single  class  in  the  community,  and 
that  too  a  class  which  needed  least  to  be  brought  to 
intelligence  and  power.  The  mass  of  the  nation,  those 
by  whom  its  labor  and  commerce  were  conducted,  had 
little  access  to  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  Poverty  first, 
then  social  distinctions,  and,  until  recent  days,  sec- 
tarian haughtiness  barred  them  out.  Their  exclu- 
sion reacted  on  the  training  of  the  universities  them- 
selves. Conservatism  nourished.  The  worth  of  an 
intellectual  interest  was  rated  rather  by  its  tradi- 
tional character  than  by  its  closeness  to  life.  The 
sciences,  latter-day  things,  were  pursued  hardly  at 
all.  The  modern  literatures,  English  included,  had 
no  place.  Plato  and  Aristotle  furnished  most  of  the 
philosophy.  While  the  rest  of  the  world  was  deriving 
1  Printed  in  1892. 


106  UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION 

from  Germany  methods  of  study,  from  France  meth- 
ods of  exposition,  and  from  America  methods  of 
treating  all  men  alike  as  rational,  English  scholar- 
ship, based  on  no  gymnasia,  lycees,  or  high  schools, 
went  its  way,  little  regarding  the  life  of  its  nation  or 
that  of  the  world  at  large. 

But  there  has  come  a  change.  Reformers  have 
been  endeavoring  to  go  out  and  find  the  common  man, 
and,  in  connection  with  him,  to  develop  those  subjects 
which  before,  according  to  university  tradition,  were 
looked  at  somewhat  askance.  English  literature, 
political  economy,  modern  history,  have  been  put  in 
the  foreground  of  this  popularized  education.  Far 
and  wide  throughout  England  an  enthusiastic  band  of 
young  teachers,  under  the  guidance  of  officers  of  the 
universities,  have  been  giving  instruction  in  these  sub- 
jects to  companies  in  which  social  grades  are  for  the 
time  forgotten.  And  since  public  libraries  are  rare  in 
England,  and  among  the  poorer  classes  the  reading 
habit  is  but  slightly  formed,  an  ambitious  few  among 
the  hearers  have  prized  their  opportunities  sufficiently 
to  undertake  a  certain  amount  of  study  and  to  hand 
in  papers  for  the  lecturer  to  inspect  and  to  mark.  In 
exceptional  cases  as  many  as  one  third  of  the  audi- 
ence have  thus  written  exercises  and  passed  exami- 
nations. The  great  majority  of  those  in  attendance 
during  the  three  months'  term  of  course  do  nothing 
more  than  listen  to  the  weekly  lecture. 


UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION  107 

This  is  the  very  successful  English  movement 
which  for  some  years  has  been  exciting  admiration 
the  world  over,  and.  which  it  is  proposed  to  introduce 
into  the  United  States.  Rightly  to  estimate  its  worth 
those  aspects  of  it  to  which  attention  has  just  been 
directed  should  carefully  be  borne  in  mind.  They 
are  these :  the  movement  is  as  much  social  as  scholarly 
and  accompanies  a  general  democratic  upheaval  of 
an  aristocratic  nation ;  it  springs  up  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  universities  to  which  the  common  people  do 
not  resort,  and  in  which  those  subjects  which  most 
concern  the  minds  of  modern  men  are  little  taught; 
in  its  country  other  facilities  for  enabling  the  average 
man  to  capture  knowledge  —  public  libraries,  reading 
clubs,  illustrated  magazines,  free  high  schools  —  are 
not  yet  general ;  it  flourishes  in  a  small  and  compact 
land,  where  a  multitude  of  populous  towns  are  in  such 
immediate  neighborhood  and  so  connected  by  a 
network  of  railroads  that  he  who  is  busied  in  one 
place  to-day  can,  with  the  slightest  fatigue  and  ex- 
pense, appear  in  five  other  towns  during  the  remain- 
ing days  of  the  week. 

These  conditions,  and  others  as  gravely  distinctive, 
do  not  exist  in  America.  From  the  first  the  American 
college  has  been  organized  by  the  people  and  for  the 
people.  It  has  been  about  as  much  resorted  to  by  the 
poor  as  by  the  rich.  Through  a  widely  developed  sys- 
tem of  free  public  schools  it  has  kept  itself  closely  in 


108  UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION 

touch  with  popular  ideals.  Its  graduates  go  into  com- 
mercial life  as  often  as  into  medicine,  the  ministry,  or 
the  law.  It  has  shown  itself  capable  of  expansion  too 
in  adjusting  itself  to  the  modern  enlargement  of 
knowledge.  The  rigid  curriculum,  which  suited  well 
enough  the  needs  of  our  fathers,  has  been  discarded, 
and  every  college,  in  proportion  to  the  resources  at  its 
command,  now  offers  elective  studies  and  seeks  to 
meet  the  needs  of  differing  men.  To  all  who  can  af' 
ford  four  years  (soon  it  may  be  three),  and  who  are 
masters  of  about  half  as  much  capital  as  would  sup- 
port them  during  the  same  time  elsewhere,  the  four 
hundred  colleges  of  our  country  offer  an  education  far 
too  good  to  be  superseded,  duplicated,  or  weakened. 
In  these  colleges  excellent  provision  has  been  made, 
and  has  been  made  once  for  all,  for  everybody  who 
has  a  little  time  and  a  little  money  to  devote  to  sys- 
tematic education  of  the  higher  sort. 

But  our  educational  scheme  has  one  serious  limi- 
tation, and  during  the  last  fifty  years  there  have  been 
many  earnest  efforts  to  surmount  it.  Not  every  man  is 
free  to  seek  a  systematic  training.  Multitudes  are  tied 
to  daily  toil  and  only  in  the  evening  can  they  con- 
sider their  own  enlargement.  Many  grow  old  before 
the  craving  for  knowledge  arises.  Many  also,  with 
more  or  less  profit,  have  attended  a  college,  but  are 
glad  subsequently  to  supply  those  defects  of  educa- 
tion which  the  experiences  of  life  relentlessly  bring 


UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION  109 

to  view.  To  all  these  classes,  caught  in  the  whirl  of 
affairs,  the  college  does  not  minister.  It  is  true  that 
much  that  such  people  want  they  get  from  the  pub- 
lic library,  especially  as  our  librarians  of  the  modern 
type  energetically  accept  their  duties  as  facilitators 
of  the  public  reading.  Much  is  also  obtainable  from 
the  cheap  issues  of  the  press  and  from  such  endowed 
courses  of  higher  instruction  as  those  of  the  Lowell, 
Cooper,  Brooklyn,  Peabody,  and  Drexel  institutes. 
But,  after  all,  these  supplementary  aids,  though  valu- 
able, are  deficient  in  guiding  power.  Most  persons, 
especially  if  novices,  work  best  under  inspection. 
To  learners  teachers  are  generally  important.  There 
seems  to  be  still  a  place  in  our  well-supplied  country 
for  an  organization  which  shall  arouse  a  more  gen- 
eral desire  for  knowledge ;  which  shall  stand  ready  to 
satisfy  this  desire  more  cheaply,  with  less  interrup- 
tion to  daily  occupation,  and  consequently  in  ways 
more  fragmentary  than  the  colleges  can ;  and  yet  one 
which  shall  not  leave  its  pupils  alone  with  books,  but 
shall  supply  them  with  the  impulse  of  the  living  word 
and  through  writing,  discussion  and  directed  read- 
ing, shall  economize  and  render  effective  the  costly 
hours  of  learning.  Unquestionably  there  is  a  field  here 
which  the  colleges  cannot  till,  a  field  whose  harvest 
would  enrich  us  all.  Can  any  other  agency  till  it? 
To  every  experiment  thus  far  it  has  yielded  only 
meagre,  brief  and  expensive  returns.  A  capital  thing 


110  UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION 

it  would  be  to  give  to  the  busy  that  which  normally 
requires  time  and  attention ;  but  how  to  do  it  is  the 
question,  —  how  to  do  it  in  reality,  and  not  in  mere 
outward  seeming. 

Chautauqua  has  not  done  it,  impassioned  though 
that  rough  and  generous  institution  has  been  for  wide 
and  fragmentary  culture.  Its  work,  indeed,  has  had 
a  different  aim ;  and,  amusing  as  that  work  often  ap- 
pears, it  ought  to  be  understood  and  acknowledged 
as  of  fundamental  consequence  in  our  hastily  set- 
tled and  heterogeneous  land.  Chautauqua  sends  its 
little  books  and  papers  into  stagnant  homes  from 
Maine  to  California  and  gives  the  silent  occupants 
something  to  think  about.  Conversation  springs  up ; 
and  with  it  fresh  interests,  fresh  hopes.  A  new  tie  is 
formed  between  young  and  old,  as  together  they  per- 
sue  the  same  studies  and  in  the  same  graduating  class 
walk  through  the  Golden  Gate.  Any  man  who  loves 
knowledge  and  his  native  land  must  be  glad  at  heart 
when  he  visits  a  summer  assembly  of  Chautauqua: 
there  listens  to  the  Orator's  Recognition  Address ;  at- 
tends the  swiftly  successive  Round  Tables  upon  Mil- 
ton, Temperance,  Geology,  the  American  Constitu- 
tion, the  Relations  of  Science  and  Religion,  and  the 
Doctrine  of  Rent;  perhaps  assists  at  the  Cooking 
School,  the  Prayer  Meeting,  the  Concert  and  the 
Gymnastic  Drill ;  or  wanders  under  the  trees  among 
the  piazzaed  cottages  and  sees  the  Hall  of  Philosophy 


UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION  111 

and  the  wooden  Doric  Temple  shining  on  their  little 
eminences ;  and,  best  of  all,  perceives  in  what  throngs 
have  gathered  here  the  butcher,  the  baker,  and 
the  candlestick-maker,  —  a  throng  themselves,  their 
wives  and  daughters  a  throng  —  all  heated  in  body, 
but  none  the  less  aglow  for  learning  and  a  good  time. 
The  comic  aspects  of  this  mixture  of  science,  fresh 
air,  flirtation,  Greek  reminiscence,  and  devoutness 
are  patent  enough ;  but  the  way  in  which  the  multi- 
tude is  being  won  to  discard  distrust  of  knowledge, 
and  to  think  of  it  rather  as  the  desirable  goal  for  all, 
is  not  so  generally  remarked  by  scholarly  observers. 
Yet  that  is  the  weighty  fact.  The  actual  product 
in  education  may  not  be  large;  enthusiasm  and  the 
memory  may  be  more  stimulated  than  the  rational 
intelligence.  But  minds  are  set  in  motion;  an  intel- 
lectual world,  beyond  the  domestic  and  personal, 
begins  to  appear;  studious  thought  forms  its  fit 
friendship  with  piety,  gladness  and  the  sense  of  a 
common  humanity;  a  groundwork  of  civilization  is 
prepared.  To  find  a  popular  movement  so  composite 
and  aspiring,  we  must  go  back  to  the  mediaeval  Cru- 
sades or  the  Greek  Mysteries.  In  these  alone  do  we 
observe  anything  so  ideal,  so  bizarre,  so  expressive 
of  the  combined  intellectual  and  religious  hopes  of  a 
people.  In  many  Chautauqua  homes  pathetic  sac- 
rifices will  be  made  in  the  next  generation  to  send 
the  boys  and  girls  to  a  real  college. 


112          UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION 

Now,  in  proposing  to  transport  to  this  country 
English  extension  methods  the  managers  have  had  in 
mind  nothing  so  elementarily  important  as  Chautau- 
qua.  They  have  felt  the  pity  we  all  feel  for  persons  of 
good  parts  who,  through  poverty  or  occupation,  are 
debarred  from  a  college  training.  They  seek  to  reach 
minds  already  somewhat  prepared,  and  to  such  they 
undertake  to  supply  solid  instruction  of  the  higher 
grades.  It  is  this  more  ambitious  design  which  calls 
for  criticism.  Professor  R.  G.  Moulton  speaks  of  ex- 
tension education  as  "distinguished  from  school  edu- 
cation, being  moulded  to  meet  the  wants  of  adults." 
And  again,  "So  far  as  method  is  concerned,  we  have 
considered  that  we  are  bound  to  be  not  less  thor- 
ough, but  more  thorough,  if  possible,  than  the  univer- 
sities themselves."  If,  in  the  general  educational 
campaign,  we  liken  Chautauqua  to  a  guerrilla  high 
school,  university  extension  will  be  a  guerrilla  college. 
Both  move  with  light  armor,  have  roving  commis- 
sions, attack  individuals,  and  themselves  appear  in 
the  garb  of  ordinary  life ;  but  they  are  equipped  for 
a  service  in  which  the  more  cumbrous  organizations 
of  school  and  college  have  thus  far  proved  ineffective. 
It  is  a  fortunate  circumstance  that,  with  fields  of 
operation  so  distinct,  no  jealousy  can  exist  between 
the  two  bands  of  volunteers,  or  between  them  both 
and  the  regular  army.  The  success  of  either  would 
increase  the  success  of  the  other  two.  To  Chautau- 


UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION  113 

qua  we  are  all  indebted  for  lessening  the  popular 
suspicion  of  expert  knowledge;  and  if  the  plans  of 
the  extension  committee  could  be  carried  out,  college 
methods  would  have  a  vogue,  and  a  consequent 
respect,  which  they  have  never  yet  enjoyed. 

Every  one,  accordingly,  civilian  or  professional, 
wishes  the  movement  well,  and  recognizes  that  the 
work  it  proposes  to  do  in  our  country  is  not  at  present 
performed.  Its  aims  are  excellent.  Are  they  also 
practicable  ?  We  cannot  with  certainty  say  that  they 
are  not,  but  it  is  here  that  doubts  arise,  —  doubts  of 
three  sorts :  those  which  suspect  a  fundamental  dif- 
ference in  the  two  countries  which  try  the  experiment ; 
those  which  are  incredulous  about  the  permanent 
response  which  our  people  will  make  to  the  educa- 
tion offered ;  and  those  which  question  the  possibility 
of  securing  a  stable  body  of  extension  teachers.  The 
first  set  of  these  doubts  has  been  briefly  but  sufficiently 
indicated  at  the  beginning  of  this  paper ;  the  second 
may  with  still  greater  brevity  be  summed  up  here  in 
the  following  connected  series  of  inquiries :  — 

With  the  multitude  of  other  opportunities  for  edu- 
cation which  American  life  affords,  will  any  large 
body  of  men  and  women  attend  extension  lectures  ? 
Will  they  attend  after  the  novelty  is  worn  off,  say 
during  the  third  year  ?  Will  they  do  anything  more 
than  attend  ?  Will  they  follow  courses  of  study,  write 
essays,  and  pass  examinations?  Will  the  extension 


114          UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION 

system,  any  better  than  its  decayed  predecessor,  the 
old  lyceum  system,  resist  the  demands  of  popular 
audiences  and  keep  itself  from  slipping  out  of  serious 
instruction  into  lively  and  eloquent  entertainment? 
If  the  lectures  are  kept  true  to  their  aim  of  furnishing 
solid  instruction,  can  they  in  the  long  run  be  paid  for  ? 
Will  it  be  possible  to  find  in  our  country  clusters  of 
half  a  dozen  towns  so  grouped  and  so  ready  to  sub- 
scribe to  a  course  of  lectures  on  each  day  of  the  week 
that  out  of  the  entire  six  a  living  salary  can  be  ob- 
tained ?  Will  the  new  teachers  be  obliged  to  confine 
themselves  to  the  suburbs  of  large  cities,  abandoning 
the  scattered  dwellers  in  the  country,  that  portion  of 
our  population  which  is  almost  the  only  one  at  pre- 
sent cut  off  from  tolerable  means  of  culture  ?  If  in 
order  to  pursue  these  destitute  ones,  correspondence 
methods  are  employed,  in  addition  to  the  already 
approved  methods  of  lecture  instruction,  will  lower- 
ing of  the  standard  follow?  In  England  three  or 
four  years  of  extension  lectures  are  counted  equiva- 
lent to  one  year  of  regular  study,  and  a  person  who 
has  attended  extension  courses  for  this  time  may  be 
admitted  without  further  examination  to  the  second 
year  of  university  residence.  Will  anything  of  the  sort 
be  generally  attempted  here  ? 

These  grave  questions  are  as  yet  insusceptible  of 
answer.  Affirmative,  desirable  answers  do  not  seem 
probable ;  but  experience  alone  can  make  the  matter 


UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION  115 

plain.  Of  course  the  managers  are  watchfully  bear- 
ing such  questions  in  mind,  and  critical  watchfulness 
may  greatly  aid  the  better  answer  and  hinder  the  less 
desirable.  Accordingly  anything  like  a  discussion  of 
this  class  of  practical  doubts  would  be  inappropriate 
here.  Data  for  the  formation  of  a  confident  opinion 
do  not  exist.  All  that  can  be  done  by  way  of  warning 
is  to  indicate  certain  large  improbabilities,  leaving 
them  to  be  confirmed  or  thwarted  by  time  and  human 
ingenuity. 

But  with  the  third  class  of  doubts  the  case  is  dif- 
ferent. These  relate  to  the  constitution  of  the  staff 
of  teachers,  and  here  sufficient  facts  are  at  hand  to 
permit  a  few  points  to  be  demonstrated  with  con- 
siderable certainty.  When,  for  example,  we  ask  from 
what  source  teachers  are  to  be  drawn,  we  are  usually 
told  that  they  must  come  from  college  faculties.  If 
the  method  of  the  extension  lecturer  is  to  be  as 
thorough  as  that  of  the  universities  themselves,  the 
lecturers  must  be  experts,  not  amateurs;  and  where 
except  at  the  colleges  does  a  body  of  experts  exist  ? 
No  doubt  many  well-trained  men  are  scattered 
throughout  the  community  as  merchants,  doctors, 
school-teachers,  and  lawyers.  But  these  men,  when 
of  proved  power,  have  more  than  they  properly  can 
attend  to  in  their  own  affairs.  It  seems  to  be  the 
colleges,  therefore,  to  which  the  movement  must  look 
for  its  teachers;  and  in  the  experiments  thus  far 


116  UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION 

made  in  this  country  the  extension  lecturing  has  been 
done  for  the  most  part  by  college  officers.  A  profes- 
sor of  history,  political  economy,  or  literature  has,  in 
addition  to  his  college  teaching,  also  given  a  course 
of  instruction  elsewhere.  This  feature  of  the  Ameri- 
can system,  one  may  say  with  confidence,  must  prove 
a  constant  damage  to  the  work  of  the  colleges  and, 
if  persisted  in,  must  ultimately  destroy  the  extension 
scheme  itself. 

In  England  the  extension  teachers  are  not  univer- 
sity teachers.  To  have  no  independent  staff  for  exten- 
sion work  is  a  novelty  of  the  American  undertaking. 
The  very  name,  university  extension,  besides  being 
barbaric,  is  in  its  English  employment  largely  mis- 
leading ;  since  neither  the  agencies  for  extending  nor 
indeed,  for  the  most  part,  the  studies  extended,  are 
found  at  the  universities  at  all.  A  small  syndicate 
or  committee,  appointed  from  among  the  university 
officers,  is  the  only  share  the  university  has  in  the 
business.  The  impression,  so  general  in  this  country, 
that  English  university  teachers  are  roaming  about 
the  island,  lecturing  to  mixed  audiences,  is  an  entire 
error.  The  university  teachers  stay  at  home  and  send 
other  people,  their  own  graduates  chiefly,  to  instruct 
the  multitude.  A  committee  of  them  decides  on  the 
qualifications  for  the  work  of  such  persons  as  care  to 
devote  themselves  to  itinerant  teaching  as  a  profes- 
sion. For  those  so  selected  they  arrange  times,  places, 


UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION  117 

and  subjects ;  but  they  themselves  do  not  move  from 
their  own  lecture  rooms.  Nor  is  there  occasion  for 
their  doing  so.  In  the  slender  development  of  popu- 
lar education  in  England,  many  more  persons  of  the 
upper  classes  become  trained  as  specialists  than  can 
find  places  as  university  teachers.  There  thus  arises 
a  learned  and  leisured  accumulation  which  capitally 
serves  the  country  in  case  of  a  new  educational  need. 
On  this  accumulated  stock  of  cultured  men  —  men 
who  otherwise  could  not  easily  bring  their  culture  to 
market  —  the  extension  movement  draws.  These 
men  are  its  teachers,  its  permanent  teachers,  since 
there  are  not  competing  places  striving  to  draw  them 
away.  In  the  two  countries  the  educational  situation 
is  exactly  reversed  :  in  England  there  are  more  trained 
men  than  positions ;  in  America,  more  positions  than 
trained  men.  It  seems  probable  too  that  this  con- 
dition of  things  will  continue  long,  so  far  as  we  are 
concerned ;  at  least  there  is  no  present  prospect  of  our 
reaching  a  limit  in  the  demand  for  competent  men. 
Whenever  a  college  has  a  chair  to  fill,  it  is  necessary 
to  hunt  far  and  wide  for  a  suitable  person  to  fill  it. 
The  demand  is  not  from  the  old  places  alone.  Almost 
every  year  a  new  college  is  founded.  Every  year  the 
old  ones  grow.  In  twenty-five  years  Harvard  has 
quadrupled  its  staff.  Columbia,  Cornell,  Princeton, 
Yale,  the  University  of  Michigan,  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania,  —  indeed  almost  every  strong  college 


118  UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION 

in  the  country,  —  shows  an  immense  advance.  A 
Western  state  is  no  sooner  settled  than  it  establishes 
a  state  university,  and  each  of  the  sects  starts  from 
one  to  three  colleges  besides.  No  such  perpetual  ex- 
pansion goes  on  in  England.  The  number  of  learned 
positions  there  is  measurably  fixed.  If  more  experts 
than  can  fill  them,  or  than  care  to  enter  political  life, 
the  liberal  professions,  and  the  civil  service,  are  manu- 
factured in  the  course  of  a  year,  the  surplus  stock  is 
at  the  disposal  of  the  extension  syndicate.  Many  of 
these  men  too  are  persons  of  means,  to  whom  a  posi- 
tion of  dignity  is  of  more  consequence  than  a  large 
salary.  The  problem,  accordingly,  of  organizing  pop- 
ular instruction  out  of  such  a  body  of  waiting  ex- 
perts is  a  comparatively  simple  one ;  but  it  is  not  so 
simple  here.  In  our  country  any  man  who  has  a  fair 
acquaintance  with  a  special  subject  and  moderate 
skill  in  imparting  it,  especially  if  he  will  be  contented 
with  a  small  salary,  can  be  pretty  sure  of  college 
appointment. 

Naturally  enough,  therefore,  the  organizers  of  the 
extension  movement,  despairing  of  finding  among  us 
competent  unattached  teachers,  have  turned  at  once 
to  the  colleges ;  but  the  colleges  are  a  very  unsafe  sup- 
port to  lean  upon.  A  professor  in  a  university  where 
the  studies  are  elective  has  no  more  superfluous  time 
than  a  busy  lawyer,  or  doctor,  or  business  man. 
Merely  to  keep  up  with  the  literature  of  a  subject,  to 


UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION  119' 

say  nothing  of  that  research  and  writing  which  should 
enlarge  its  limits,  is  an  enormous  task.  Teaching 
too  is  no  longer  an  affair  of  text-books  and  recita- 
tions. Leisurely  days  of  routine  ease  belong  to  the 
past.  A  professor  nowadays  must  prepare  lectures 
incessantly;  must  perpetually  revise  them;  must  ar- 
range examinations ;  direct  the  reading  of  his  students ; 
receive  their  theses ;  himself  read  a  large  part  of  their 
voluminous  written  work;  personally  oversee  his 
advanced  men ;  gather  them  about  him  in  laboratory, 
seminary  and  conference;  attend  innumerable  com- 
mittee and  faculty  meetings;  devise  legislation  for 
the  further  development  of  his  college  and  depart- 
ment; correspond  with  schools  and  colleges  where 
his  students,  after  taking  their  higher  degree,  may 
suitably  be  placed ;  and  if  at  the  end  of  a  hard-worked 
day  he  can  find  an  hour's  leisure,  he  must  still  keep 
his  door  open  for  students  or  fellow-officers  to  enter. 
So  laborious  have  become  the  duties  of  a  university 
teacher  that  few  large  staffs  now  go  through  a  year 
without  one  or  two  of  their  members  breaking  down. 
With  the  growing  complexity  of  work  it  often  seems 
as  if  the  proper  business  of  college  officers,  study  and 
teaching,  must  some  day  cease  altogether,  crowded 
out  by  the  multifarious  tasks  with  which  they  are 
only  indirectly  connected.  It  is  useless  to  say  that 
these  things  are  not  necessary.  Whoever  neglects 
them  will  cease  to  make  his  college,  his  subject  and 


120  UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION 

his  influence  grow.  It  is  because  professors  now  see 
that  they  cannot  safely  neglect  them  that  the  modern 
college  differs  fundamentally  from  its  humdrum  pre- 
decessor of  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  Any  move- 
ment which  seeks  to  withdraw  a  professor's  attention 
from  these  things,  and  induces  him  to  put  his  soul 
elsewhere,  inflicts  on  the  community  a  serious  dam- 
age. No  amount  of  intellectual  stimulus  furnished 
to  little  companies  here  and  there  can  atone  for  the 
loss  that  must  fall  on  education  when  college  teachers 
pledge  themselves  to  do  serious  work  in  other  places 
than  in  their  own  libraries  and  lecture  rooms.  To  be 
an  explorer  and  a  guide  in  a  department  of  human 
knowledge  is  an  arduous  profession.  It  admits  no 
half-hearted  service. 

Of  course  if  the  work  demanded  elsewhere  is  not 
serious,  the  case  is  different.  Rather  with  benefit  than 
with  damage  a  college  teacher  may  on  occasion  re- 
cast the  instruction  that  was  intended  for  profession- 
als and  offer  it  to  a  popular  audience.  In  this  way  a 
professor  makes  himself  known  and  makes  his  college 
known.  Many  of  the  small  colleges  are  now  engaging 
in  university  extension  as  an  inexpensive  means  of 
advertising  themselves.  But  such  lecturing  is  inci- 
dental, voluntary  and  perpetually  liable  to  interrup- 
tion. Beyond  the  immediate  series  of  lectures  it  can- 
not be  depended  on.  There  is  nothing  institutional 
about  it.  The  men  who  undertake  it  are  owned  else- 


UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION  121 

where,  and  a  second  mortgage  is  not  usually  a  very 
valuable  piece  of  property.  A  movement  which  places 
its  reliance  on  the  casual  teaching  of  overworked  men 
is  condemned  from  the  start.  University  extension 
can  never  pass  beyond  the  stage  of  amateurism  and 
temporary  expedient  until,  like  its  English  namesake, 
it  has  a  permanent  staff  of  instructors  exclusively  de- 
voted to  its  service. 

Where,  then,  is  such  a  staff  to  be  obtained  ?  In 
view  of  the  conditions  of  education  in  this  country 
already  described,  it  is  improbable  that  it  can  be  ob- 
tained at  all.  But  something  may  still  be  done,  — 
something,  however,  of  a  more  modest  sort  than  en- 
thusiasts at  present  have  in  mind.  There  issue  from 
our  great  universities  every  year  a  number  of  men 
who  have  had  two  or  three  years'  training  beyond 
their  bachelor's  degree.  Some  of  them  have  had  a 
year  or  two  of  foreign  study.  They  frequently  wish 
to  teach.  Places  do  not  immediately  open  to  them. 
If  the  extension  movement  would  set  them  to  work, 
it  might  have  all  their  time  at  a  moderate  salary  for 
two  or  three  years.  Such  men,  it  is  true,  would  be 
inexperienced,  and  their  connection  with  itinerant 
teaching  could  not  be  rendered  lasting.  As  soon  as 
one  of  them  proved  his  power  as  a  teacher,  some 
college  would  call  him ;  and  he  would  seldom  prefer 
the  nomadic  and  fragmentary  life  to  an  established 
one.  Plainly  too  under  the  charge  of  such  men  the 


122  UNIVERSITY  EXTENSION 

grade  of  instruction  could  not  be  the  highest ;  but  it 
might  be  sound,  inspiriting  even,  and  it  is  in  any  case 
all  that  present  circumstances  render  possible.  We 
may  mourn  that  those  who  are  masters  in  their  several 
provinces  are  already  fully  employed.  We  may  wish 
there  were  a  multitude  of  masters  sitting  about,  ready 
for  enlistment  in  a  missionary  undertaking.  But  there 
are  no  such  masters.  The  facts  are  evident  enough ; 
and  if  the  extension  movement  aims  at  a  durable 
existence,  it  will  respect  these  facts.  The  men  it 
wants  it  cannot  have  without  damaging  them;  and 
damaging  them,  it  damages  the  higher  education  of 
which  they  are  the  guardians.  Teachers  of  a  lower 
grade  are  at  hand,  ready  to  be  experimented  with. 
The  few  experiments  already  tried  have  been  fairly 
successful.  Let  the  extension  leaders  give  up  all 
thought  of  doing  here  what  has  been  done  in  Eng- 
land. The  principal  part  of  that  work  is  performed 
for  us  by  other  means.  The  wisest  guidance,  ac- 
cordingly, may  not  lead  the  movement  to  any  long 
success.  If,  however,  university  extension  will  keep 
itself  clearly  detached  from  other  educational  agen- 
cies and  make  a  quiet  offer  of  humble  yet  service- 
able instruction,  there  is  a  fair  prospect  that  by 
somewhat  slow  degrees  a  permanent  new  power 
may  be  added  to  the  appliances  for  rendering  busy 
Americans  intelligent. 


VI 

SPECIALIZATION1 

LADIES  and  gentlemen  of  the  graduating  class, 
this  afternoon  belongs  to  you.  This  morning  we  dedi- 
cated a  chime  of  bells  to  the  memory  of  Mrs.  Palmer, 
and  in  those  moving  exercises  you  had  but  a  slen- 
der share.  Probably  not  half  a  dozen  of  you  ever 
saw  her  who,  once  seen,  was  loved  with  romantic 
ardor.  Undoubtedly  many  of  you  are  different  from 
what  you  would  have  been  had  she  not  lived,  and 
lived  here ;  for  her  influence  so  passed  into  the  struc- 
ture of  this  University  that  she  will  shape  successive 
generations  of  you  for  a  long  time  to  come.  But 
enough  of  her.  Let  us  dismiss  her  from  our  thoughts. 
Too  much  praise  we  have  already  lavished  on  one 
who  was  ever  simple  and  self-forgetting.  She  would 
chide  our  profusion.  If  we  would  think  as  she  would 
wish  us  to  think,  let  us  turn  rather  to  the  common 
matters  of  the  day,  reflecting  on  those  joys  and  per- 
plexities which  have  attended  you  throughout  these 
formative  years.  One  especially  among  these  per- 

1  On  the  morning  of  June  9,  1908,  a  chime  of  bells  was  dedi- 
cated at  the  University  of  Chicago  in  honor  of  Alice  Freeman 
Palmer.  At  the  Convocation  Exercises  in  the  afternoon  the  fol- 
lowing address  was  delivered. 


124  SPECIALIZATION 

plexities,  perhaps  the  greatest  of  all,  I  would  invite 
you  to  consider  now.  Let  me  set  it  clearly  before 
you. 

This  morning  I  sat  down  to  breakfast  with  about 
a  hundred  of  you  who  had  entered  on  the  attainment 
of  the  highest  degree  which  this  University  offers. 
You  were  advanced  specialists.  You  had  each  chosen 
some  single  line  of  endeavor.  But  even  then  I  re- 
membered that  you  were  not  the  only  specialists  here. 
Before  me  this  afternoon  I  see  candidates  in  medi- 
cine, men  and  women  who  have  taken  for  their  spe- 
cialty the  warfare  with  pain  and  disease.  They  have 
said,  "All  that  I  can  ever  know,  I  will  bring  to  bear 
on  this  urgent  problem."  Here  also  are  the  lawyers, 
impassioned  for  justice,  for  the  quelling  of  human 
strife.  That  is  their  specialty.  They  too  restrict  them- 
selves to  a  single  point  of  view.  Beside  them  sit  the 
scientific  men,  who  looking  over  the  vast  expanse  of 
nature  have  accepted  the  task  of  tracing  the  physi- 
cal aspects  of  this  marvellous  machine.  Nor  can  I 
stop  here.  Throughout  the  undergraduate  depart- 
ment, as  we  all  know,  run  dominant  interests.  I 
should  be  ashamed  of  a  young  man  who  in  his  four 
years  had  not  found  some  compulsive  interest;  for 
it  is  only  when  an  interest  compels  that  we  can 
say  that  education  has  begun.  So  long  as  we  are 
simply  learning  what  is  set  before  us,  taking  the 
routine  mass  of  academic  subjects,  we  may  be  faith- 


SPECIALIZATION  125 

ful  students,  but  we  are  not  scholars.  No,  it  is  when 
with  a  free  heart  we  give  ourselves  to  a  subject,  bid- 
ding it  take  of  us  all  it  demands  and  feeling  that  we 
had  rather  attend  to  it  than  to  anything  else,  because 
it  expresses  our  personal  desires  —  then  it  is  that  its 
quickening  influence  takes  hold.  But  this  is  speciali- 
zation. We  might  think  of  the  University  of  Chicago 
then  as  a  great  specializing  machine. 

But  why  has  each  of  you  set  himself  this  task  of 
specialization  ?  Because  the  world  needs  leaders,  and 
you  have  chosen  yourselves  to  be  those  leaders.  Are 
you  aware  how  exceptional  is  your  condition  ?  The 
last  census  shows  that  at  present  hardly  one  per  cent 
of  our  population  is  in  our  colleges.  You  are  of  that 
one  per  cent,  and  you  are  here  in  order  that  you  may 
enlighten  the  other  ninety-nine  per  cent.  If  through 
ignorance  you  fail,  you  will  cause  others  to  fail  and 
you  had  better  never  have  come  to  this  University. 
To  some  sort  of  leadership  you  have  dedicated  your- 
selves, and  to  this  aim  you  should  be  true.  But  do 
not  at  times  doubts  cross  your  mind  ?  Have  you 
not  occasionally  asked  yourselves  whether  you  can 
attain  such  leadership  and  make  the  most  of  your 
lives  by  shutting  yourselves  up  to  a  specialty  ?  Mul- 
titudes of  interesting  things  are  calling;  shall  you 
turn  away  from  them  and  follow  a  single  line  ?  It  will 
be  worth  while  to-day  to  consider  these  fundamental 
questions  and  inquire  how  far  we  are  justified  in 


126  SPECIALIZATION 

specializing,  what  dangers  there  are  in  it,  and  in  what 
degree  those  dangers  may  be  avoided. 

Let  me  say,  then,  at  the  start,  that  I  regard  speciali- 
zation as  absolutely  essential  to  scholarship.  There 
is  no  scholarship  without  it,  for  it  is  involved  in  the 
very  process  of  knowing.  When  I  look  at  this  desk 
I  am  specializing;  that  is,  I  am  detaching  this  piece 
of  furniture  from  all  else  in  the  room.  I  am  limiting 
myself,  and  I  cannot  see  without  it.  I  can  gaze  with- 
out specialization,  but  I  cannot  see  without  speciali- 
zation. If  I  am  to  know  anything  by  sight,  that  know- 
ledge must  come  through  the  limitation  of  sight.  I 
seize  this  object,  cast  away  all  others,  and  thus  fix 
my  attention.  Or  if  I  am  carefully  to  observe,  I 
even  put  my  eye  on  a  single  point  of  the  desk.  There 
is  no  other  way.  Clear  knowledge  becomes  possible 
only  through  precise  observation.  Now  specialization 
is  nothing  but  this  necessary  limitation  of  attention ; 
and  we,  as  specialists,  are  merely  carrying  out  on  a 
large  scale  what  every  human  being  must  practise 
in  some  degree  whenever  he  knows.  We  employ  the 
process  persistently,  and  for  the  sake  of  science  are 
willing  to  hold  ourselves  steadily  to  a  single  line  of 
observation.  And  we  cannot  do  otherwise.  The  prin- 
ciples involved  in  the  specialization  of  the  senses 
run  throughout  all  science.  If  we  would  know,  we 
must  hold  the  attention  long  on  a  given  subject. 

But  there  is  an  unfortunate  side  to  specialization. 


SPECIALIZATION  127 

It  obliges  us  to  discard  other  important  interests. 
To  discard  merely  unimportant  ones  is  easy.  But 
every  evening  when  I  sit  down  to  devote  myself  to 
my  ethics  I  am  aware  that  there  are  persons  starving 
in  Boston  who  might  be  saved  if  I  should  drop  my 
work  and  go  to  them.  Yet  I  sit  calmly  there  and  say, 
"Let  them  starve;  I  am  going  to  study  ethics."  I 
do  not  see  how  I  could  be  a  suitable  professor  of 
ethics  unless  I  were  willing  thus  to  limit  myself.  That 
is  the  hard  part,  as  I  understand  it,  of  specialization, 
—  the  cutting  off  of  things  that  are  worth  while.  I 
am  sure  you  have  already  found  it  out.  Many  of 
you  have  come  from  places  of  narrow  opportunity 
and  here  find  a  welcome  abundance.  Remembering 
how  you  have  longed  to  obtain  such  privileges,  you 
will  be  tempted  to  scatter  yourselves  over  a  wide 
field,  gathering  a  little  here  and  a  little  there.  At 
the  end  of  the  year  you  will  have  nothing,  if  you  do 
that.  The  only  possibility  of  gain  is  to  choose  your 
field,  devote  serious  time  to  it,  count  yourself  a 
specialist,  and  propose  to  live  like  one.  Goethe  ad- 
mirably announces  the  principle :  "  Wer  grosses  will 
muss  sich  beschranken  konnen."  You  must  accept 
limitations  if  you  will  go  on  to  power,  for  in  limita- 
tion the  very  process  of  knowledge  is  rooted. 

Furthermore,  not  only  is  specialization  forced  upon 
us  by  the  nature  of  knowledge,  but  without  it  our 
own  powers  cannot  receive  appropriate  discipline.  It 


128  SPECIALIZATION 

is  difficult  business  to  fashion  a  sound  observer.  Each 
province  of  science  has  its  special  modes  of  observa- 
tion, its  own  modes  of  reasoning  even.  So  long  as 
we  are  unfamiliar  with  these  and  obliged  to  hold 
ourselves  to  them  through  conscious  control,  our 
work  is  poor.  It  is  slow,  inaccurate,  and  exhausting. 
Only  when  we  have  trained  ourselves  to  such  aptitudes 
that  within  a  certain  field  our  observations  and  rea- 
sonings are  instinctive  do  we  become  swift,  sure,  and 
unfatigued  in  research.  To  train  our  powers  then 
we  must  begin  to  specialize  early  and  hold  ourselves 
steadily  within  bounds.  As  one  looks  over  the  names 
of  those  who  have  accomplished  much,  one  is  sur- 
prised at  the  number  who  were  early  specialists. 
Take  my  own  department :  Berkeley  writes  his  great 
work  when  he  is  twenty-five;  Hume  publishes  his 
masterpiece  at  twenty-seven.  Or  again,  Keats  had 
brought  his  wonderful  results  to  accomplishment  and 
died  at  twenty-five;  Shelley  at  thirty;  Marlowe,  the 
greatest  loss  English  letters  ever  met,  at  twenty-seven. 
It  is  just  the  same  in  other  fields :  Alexander  dies 
at  thirty-six,  Jesus  at  thirty-three.  Yes,  let  us  look 
nearer  home:  the  most  forcible  leader  American 
education  has  ever  had  became  president  of  Harvard 
University  at  thirty-five;  President  Hyde  of  Bow- 
doin  took  his  position  at  twenty-seven ;  my  own  wife, 
Alice  Freeman,  was  president  of  Wellesley  at  twenty- 
six.  These  are  early  specialists;  and  because  they 


SPECIALIZATION  129 

specialized  early  they  acquired  an  aptitude,  a  smooth- 
ness of  work,  a  precision  of  insight,  and  width  of  power 
which  could  not  have  been  theirs  had  they  begun 
later.  I  would  not  deny  that  there  have  been  geniuses 
who  seemed  to  begin  late:  Kant  was  such;  Locke 
was  such.  You  will  recall  many  within  your  own 
fields.  But  I  think  when  you  search  the  career  of 
those  who  come  to  power  in  comparatively  late 
years,  you  will  find  that  there  has  usually  been  a  train 
of  covert  specialization  running  through  their  lives. 
They  may  not  have  definitely  named  their  field  to 
themselves,  or  produced  work  within  that  field  in 
early  years,  but  everything  had  been  converging 
toward  that  issue.  I  believe,  therefore,  you  ought  to 
respect  your  specialty,  because  only  through  it  can 
your  powers  be  brought  to  their  highest  accuracy 
and  service. 

One  more  justification  of  specialization  I  will  briefly 
mention,  that  it  is  necessary  for  the  organization  of 
society.  No  motive  is  good  for  much  until  it  is  social- 
ized. If  specialization  only  developed  our  individual 
selves,  we  could  hardly  justify  it ;  but  it  is  the  means 
of  progress  for  society.  The  field  of  knowledge  is 
vast;  no  man  can  master  it,  and  its  immensity  was 
never  so  fully  understood  as  to-day.  The  only  way 
the  whole  province  can  be  conquered  and  brought 
under  subjection  to  human  needs  is  by  parting  it  out, 
one  man  being  content  to  till  his  little  corner  while 


130  SPECIALIZATION 

his  neighbor  is  engaged  on  something  widely  differ- 
ent. We  must  part  out  the  field  of  knowledge  and 
specialize  on  our  allotted  work,  in  order  that  there 
may  be  entirety  in  science.  If  we  seek  to  have  en- 
tirety in  ourselves,  science  will  be  fragmentary  and 
feeble.  That  division  of  labor  which  has  proved  ef- 
ficient everywhere  else  is  no  less  needful  in  science. 

But  I  suppose  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  justify 
specialization  to  this  audience.  Most  of  you  have 
staked  heavily  on  it,  putting  yourselves  to  serious 
inconvenience,  many  of  you  heavily  mortgaging  your 
future,  in  order  to  come  here  and  devote  yourselves 
to  some  single  interest.  I  might  confidently  go  through 
this  room  asking  each  of  you  what  is  your  subject? 
And  you  would  proudly  reply,  "  My  subject  is  this. 
My  subject  is  this.  My  subject  is  this."  I  think  you 
would  feel  ashamed  if  you  had  not  thus  specialized. 
I  see  no  occasion,  therefore,  to  elaborate  what  I  have 
urged.  As  I  understand  it,  the  three  roots  of  speciali- 
zation are  these :  it  is  grounded  in  the  very  nature  of 
the  knowing  process;  it  is  grounded  in  the  needs  of 
ourselves  as  individuals,  in  order  that  we  may  attain 
our  maximum  efficiency ;  it  is  grounded  in  the  needs 
of  society,  because  only  so  can  society  reach  that 
fulness  of  knowledge  which  its  progress  requires. 

But,  after  all,  the  beliefs  which  are  accepted  as 
matters  of  course  in  this  room  are  largely  denounced 
outside  it.  We  must  acknowledge  that  our  confidence 


SPECIALIZATION  131 

in  specialization  encounters  many  doubts  in  the  com- 
munity. It  may  be  well,  then,  to  place  ourselves 
where  that  community  stands  and  ask  the  general 
public  to  tell  us  why  it  doubts  us,  what  there  is  in 
our  specialized  attitude  which  it  thinks  defective,  and 
what  are  the  complaints  which  it  is  disposed  to  bring 
against  us  ?  I  will  try  to  take  the  position  of  devil's 
advocate  and  plead  the  cause  of  the  objector  to 
specialization. 

Specialization,  it  is  said,  leads  to  ignorance;  in- 
deed it  rather  aims  at  ignorance  than  knowledge. 
When  I  attend  to  this  desk,  it  is  true  I  secure  a  bit 
of  knowledge,  but  how  small  is  that  bit  in  compari- 
son to  all  the  things  in  this  room  which  I  might  know 
about!  It  is  but  a  fraction.  Yet  I  have  condemned 
all  else  in  the  room  to  ignorance,  reserving  only  this 
one  little  object  for  knowledge.  Now  that  is  what  we 
are  all  of  us  doing  on  a  great  scale;  by  specializ- 
ing, by  limiting  our  attention,  we  cut  off  what  is  not 
attended  to.  It  is  often  assumed  that  attention  is 
mainly  a  positive  affair  and  occupied  with  what  we 
are  to  know.  But  that  is  a  very  small  portion  of  it ; 
really  its  important  part  is  the  negative,  the  removal 
of  what  we  do  not  wish  to  observe.  We  cut  ourselves 
off  from  the  great  mass  of  knowledge  which  is  offered. 
Is  it  not  then  true  that  every  specialist  has  disciplined 
himself  to  be  an  ignoramus  ?  He  has  drawn  a  fence 
around  a  little  portion  of  the  universe  and  said, 


132  SPECIALIZATION 

"Within  that  fence  I  know  something."  "Yes,"  the 
public  replies,  "  but  you  do  not  know  anything  out- 
side." And  is  not  the  public  right?  When  we  step 
forward  and  claim  to  be  learned  men,  is  not  the 
public  justified  in  saying,  "  I  know  a  great  deal  more 
than  you  do ;  I  know  a  thousandjhings_and  you  know 
^^onlvone.  You  say  you  know  that  one  through  and 
through,  and  of  course  I  do  not  know  my  thousand 
things  through  and  through.  But  it  is  not  necessary. 
I  perceive  their  relations ;  I  can  handle  them ;  I  can 
use  them  in  practice;  can  you  ?"  "  Well,  no,"  we  are 
obliged  to  say,  "we  specialists  are  a  little  fumbling 
when  we  try  to  take  hold  of  the  world.  We  are  not 
altogether  skilful  in  action,  just  because  we  are  such 
specialists."  You  students  here  have  been  devoting 
yourselves  to  some  one  point  —  I  am  afraid  many 
of  you  are  going  to  have  sad  experience  of  it  —  you 
have  been  learning  to  know  something  nobody  else 
on  earth  does  know,  and  then  you  go  forth  to  seek  a 
position.  But  the  world  may  have  no  use  for  you; 
there  are  only  two  or  three  positions  of  that  sort  in 
the  country,  and  those  may  happen  to  be  filled.  Just 
because  you  are  such  an  elaborate  scholar  you  can- 
not earn  your  daily  bread.  You  have  cut  yourself 
off  from  everything  but  that  one  species  of  learning, 
and  that  does  not  happen  to  be  wanted.  Therefore 
you  are  not  wanted.  Such  is  the  too  frequent  con- 
dition of  the  specialist.  The  thousand  things  he  does 


SPECIALIZATION  133 

not  know;  it  is  only  the  one  thing  he  does  know. 
And  because  he  is  so  ignorant,  he  is  helpless. 

Turning  then  to  our  second  justification  of  special-  " 
ization,  the  case  seems  equally  bad.  I  said  that 
specialization  was  needed  for  the  training  of  our 
powers.  The  training  of  them  all  ?  Not  that,  but 
the  training  of  only  certain  ones  among  them.  The 
others  hang  slack.  In  those  regions  of  ourselves  we 
count  for  little.  We  are  men  of  weight  only  within 
the  range  of  the  powers  we  have  trained ;  and  what 
a  large  slice  of  us  lies  outside  these !  Accordingly  the 
general  public  declares  that  there  is  no  judgment  so 
bad  as  the  judgment  of  a  specialist.  Few  practical 
situations  exactly  coincide  with  his  specialty,  and 
outside  his  specialty  his  judgment  is  worse  than  that 
of  the  novice.  He  has  been  training  himself  in  ref- 
erence to  something  precise;  and  the  moment  he 
ventures  beyond  it,  the  very  exactitude  of  his  disci- 
pline limits  his  worth.  The  man  who  has  not  been  a 
specialist,  who  has  dabbled  in  all  things  and  has  ac- 
quired a  rough  and  ready  common  sense,  that  man's 
judgment  is  worth  something  in  many  different  sec- 
tions of  life,  but  the  judgment  of  the  specialist  is 
painfully  poor  beyond  his  usual  range.  You  remem- 
ber how,  in  the  comic  opera,  the  practice  is  satirized 
of  appointing  a  person  who  has  never  been  at  sea 
to  take  charge  of  the  navy  of  a  great  country.  But 
that  is  the  only  sensible  course  to  pursue.  Put  a 


134  SPECIALIZATION 

specialist  there,  and  the  navy  will  be  wretchedly  or- 
ganized, because  the  administration  of  the  navy  re- 
quires something  more  than  the  specialism  of  sea- 
manship. It  is  necessary  to  coordinate  seamanship 
with  many  other  considerations,  and  the  man  trained 
in  the  specialty  of  seamanship  is  little  likely  to  have 
that  ability.  Therefore  ordinarily  we  use  our  experts 
best  by  putting  them  under  the  control  of  those  who 
are  not  experts.  Common  sense  has  the  last  word. 
The  coordinating  power  which  has  not  been  disci- 
plined in  single  lines  is  what  ultimately  takes  the 
direction  of  affairs.  We  need  the  specialist  within 
his  little  field ;  shut  him  up  there,  and  he  is  valuable 
enough ;  but  don't  let  him  escape.  That  seems  to 
be  the  view  of  the  public.  They  keep  the  specialist 
confined  because  they  utterly  distrust  his  judgment 
when  he  extends  himself  abroad. 

And  when  we  look  at  the  third  of  our  grounds  for 
justification,  social  need,  the  public  declares  that 
the  specialists  are  intolerably  presumptuous.  Know- 
ing their  own  subject,  they  imagine  they  can  dictate 
to  anybody  and  do  not  understand  how  limited  is 
their  importance.  Again  and  again  it  happens  that 
because  a  man  does  know  some  one  thing  pretty  well 
he  sets  himself  up  as  a  great  man  in  general.  My 
own  province  suffers  in  this  respect  more  than  most ; 
for  as  soon  as  a  man  acquires  considerable  skill  in 
chemistry  or  biology,  he  is  apt  to  issue  a  pronuncia- 


SPECIALIZATION  135 

mento  on  philosophy.  But  philosophy  does  not  suffer 
alone.  Everywhere  the  friends  of  the  great  specialist 
are  telling  him  he  has  proved  himself  a  mighty  man, 
quite  competent  to  sit  in  judgment  on  the  universe; 
and  he,  forgetting  that  the  universe  and  the  par- 
ticular subject  he  knows  something  about  are  two 
different  things,  really  imagines  that  his  ignorant 
opinions  deserve  consideration. 

Now  I  suppose  we  must  acknowledge  that  in  all 
this  blasphemy  against  our  calling,  there  is  a  good 
deal  of  truth.  These  certainly  are  dangers  which  all 
of  us  specialists  incur.  I  agree  that  they  are  inevi- 
table dangers.  Do  not,  however,  let  us  on  account 
of  them  abandon  specialization  and  seek  to  acquire 
a  mass  of  miscellaneous  information.  Bacon  said,  "  I 
take  all  knowledge  for  my  province."  If  we  say  it, 
we  shall  become  not  Bacons  but  fools.  No,  that  is 
the  broad  road  to  ignorance.  But  laying  these  pro- 
found dangers  of  specialization  well  to  heart,  assured 
that  they  beset  us  all,  let  us  search  for  remedial 
measures.  Let  us  ask  how  such  dangers  may  be  re- 
duced to  a  minimum.  Is  there  a  certain  way  in  which 
we  may  engage  in  the  specialist's  research  and  still 
save  ourselves  from  some  of  the  evils  I  have  here  de- 
picted ?  I  think  there  is.  To  find  it  we  will  follow 
the  same  three  avenues  which  have  been  leading  us 
thus  far. 

In  regard  to  the  first,  the  limitation  of  attention, 


136  SPECIALIZATION 

I  understand  that,  after  all,  our  specialty  cannot 
fill  our  entire  life.  We  do  sometimes  sit  down  to 
dinner ;  we  occasionally  talk  with  a  friend ;  we  now 
and  then  take. a  journey;  we  permit  ourselves  from 
time  to  time  to  read  some  other  book  than  one  which 
refers  to  our  subject.  That  is,  I  take  it,  if  we  are  fully 
alive  to  the  great  danger  that  in  specializing  we  are 
cutting  off  a  large  part  of  the  universe,  we  shall  be 
wise  in  gathering  eagerly  whatever  additional  know- 
ledge we  may  acquire  outside  our  specialty.  And  I 
must  say  that  the  larger  number  of  eminent  special- 
ists whom  I  have  happened  to  know  have  been  men 
pretty  rich  in  knowledge  outside  their  specialties. 
They  were  men  who  well  apprehended  the  extreme 
danger  of  their  limited  modes  of  pursuit  and  who 
greedily  grasped,  therefore,  at  every  bit  of  know- 
ledge they  could  obtain  which  lay  beyond  their 
province.  They  appropriated  all  the  wisdom  they 
could;  and  merely  because  it  did  not  exactly  fit  in 
with  their  specialty,  they  did  not  turn  it  away.  I  do 
not  know  how  far  it  is  wise  to  go  in  this  effort  to  re- 
pair the  one-sidedness  in  which  most  of  us  are  com- 
pelled to  live.  A  rather  extreme  case  was  once  brought 
to  my  attention.  There  was  a  student  at  Harvard  who 
had  been  a  high  scholar  with  me,  and  I  found  that 
he  was  also  so  specializing  in  the  classics  that  when 
he  graduated  he  took  classical  honors.  Some  years 
later  I  learned  that  he  was  one  of  the  highest  scholars 


SPECIALIZATION  137 

in  the  Medical  School.  Meeting  him  a  few  years  after 
he  had  entered  his  profession,  I  asked,  "How  did 
it  happen  that  you  changed  your  mind  so  mark- 
edly ?  You  devoted  yourself  to  classics  and  philosophy 
in  college.  What  made  you  finally  decide  to  become 
a  physician  ?  "  "  Finally  decide ! "  said  he.  "  Why, 
from  childhood  up  I  never  intended  to  be  anything 
else."  "  But,"  I  persisted,  "  I  cannot  be  mistaken  in 
recalling  that  you  devoted  yourself  in  college  to 
classics  and  philosophy."  "Yes,"  he  said,  "I  did, 
because  I  knew  I  should  never  have  another  chance 
at  those  subjects.  I  was  going  to  give  the  rest  of  my 
life  to  medicine,  so  I  took  those  years  for  classics  and 
philosophy."  I  asked,  "  Was  n't  that  a  great  mis- 
take; haven't  you  now  found  out  your  blunder?" 
"  Oh,  no,"  said  he,  "  I  am  a  much  better  physician 
on  that  account ;  I  could  not  have  done  half  so  well 
if  I  had  n't  had  all  that  training  in  philosophy  and 
classics."  Now  I  cannot  advise  such  a  course  for 
everybody.  It  takes  a  big  man  to  do  that.  If  you  are 
big  enough,  it  is  worth  while  laying  a  very  broad 
foundation ;  but  considering  the  size  on  which  most 
of  us  are  planned,  it  is  wiser  to  begin  early  and 
specialize  from  the  very  start. 

Well,  then,  here  is  one  mode  of  making  up  for  the 
defects  of  specialization :  we  may  pick  up  knowledge 
outside  our  subject.  But  it  is  an  imperfect  mode; 
you  never  can  put  away  your  limitations  altogether. 


138  SPECIALIZATION 

You  can  do  a  great  deal.  Use  your  odd  quarter- 
hours  wisely  and  do  not  merely  play  in  fragmentary 
times,  understanding  that  these  are  precious  seasons 
for  acquiring  the  knowledge  which  lies  beyond  your 
province.  Then  every  time  you  talk  with  anybody, 
lead  him  neatly  to  what  he  knows  best,  keeping  an 
attentive  ear,  becoming  a  first-class  listener,  and  seek- 
ing to  get  beyond  yourself.  By  doing  so  you  will  un- 
doubtedly much  enlarge  the  narrow  bounds  to  which 
you  have  pledged  yourself.  Yet  this  policy  will  not  be 
enough.  It  will  require  to  be  supplemented  by  some- 
thing more.  Therefore  I  should  say  in  the  second 
place,  that  in  disciplining  our  powers  we  must  be  care- 
ful to  conceive  our  specialty  broadly  enough.  In  tak- 
ing it  too  narrowly  lies  our  chief  danger.  There  are 
two  types  of  specialist.  There  is  the  man  who  regards 
his  specialty  as  a  door  into  which  he  goes  and  by 
which  he  shuts  the  world  out,  hiding  himself  with  his 
own  little  interests.  That  is  the  petty,  poor  specialist, 
the  specialist  who  never  becomes  a  man  of  power, 
however  much  he  may  be  a  man  of  learning.  But 
there  is  an  entirely  different  sort  of  specialist  from 
that;  it  is  the  man  who  regards  his  specialty  as  a 
window  out  of  which  he  may  peer  upon  all  the  world. 
His  specialty  is  merely  a  point  of  view  from  which 
everything  is  regarded.  Consequently  without  depart- 
ing from  our  specialty  each  of  us  may  escape  narrow- 
ness. Instead  of  running  over  all  the  earth  and  con- 


SPECIALIZATION  139 

templating  it  in  a  multitude  of  different  aspects,  the 
wise  specialist  chooses  some  single  point  of  view  and 
examines  the  universe  as  it  is  related  to  this.  Every- 
thing therefore  has  a  meaning  for  him,  everything  con- 
tributes something  to  his  specialty.  Narrowing  him- 
self while  he  is  getting  his  powers  disciplined,  as  those 
powers  become  trained  he  slacks  them  off  and  gives 
them  a  wider  range;  for  he  knows  very  well  that 
while  the  world  is  cut  up  into  little  parcels  it  never 
can  be  viewed  rightly.  It  will  always  be  distorted. 
For,  after  all,  things  are  what  they  are  through  their 
relations,  and  if  you  snap  those  relations  you  never 
truly  conceive  anything.  Accordingly,  as  soon  as 
we  have  got  our  specialty,  we  should  begin  to  coor- 
dinate that  specialty  with  everything  else.  At  first 
we  may  fix  our  attention  on  some  single  problem 
within  a  given  field,  but  soon  we  discover  that  we 
cannot  master  that  problem  without  knowing  the 
rest  of  the  field  also.  As  we  go  on  to  know  the  rest 
of  the  field  and  make  ourself  a  fair  master  of  that 
science,  we  discover  that  that  science  depends  on 
other  sciences.  Never  was  there  an  age  of  the  world 
in  which  this  interlocking  of  the  sciences  was  so 
clearly  perceived  as  in  our  day.  Formerly  we  seemed 
able  to  isolate  a  particular  topic  and  know  something 
of  it,  but  in  our  evolutionary  time  nothing  of  that 
kind  is  possible.  Each  thing  is  an  epitome  of  the 
whole.  Have  you  been  training  your  eye  to  see  a 


140  SPECIALIZATION 

world  in  a  grain  of  sand  ?  Can  you  look  through  your 
specialty  out  upon  the  total  universe  and  say :  "  I  am 
a  specialist  merely  because  I  do  not  want  to  be  a 
narrow  man.  My  specialty  is  my  telescope.  Every- 
thing belongs  to  me.  I  cannot,  it  is  true,  turn  to 
it  all  at  once.  Being  a  feeble  person  I  must  advance 
from  point  to  point,  accepting  limitations ;  but  just 
as  fast  as  I  can,  having  mastered  those  limitations, 
I  shall  cast  them  aside  and  press  on  into  ever  broader 
regions." 

But  I  said  specialization  was  fundamentally  justi- 
fied through  the  organization  of  society,  because  by 
its  division  of  toil  we  contribute  our  share  to  the  total 
of  human  knowledge;  and  yet  the  popular  objector 
declares  that  we  are  presumptuous,  and  because  we 
have  mastered  our  own  specialty  we  are  apt  to  as- 
sume ourselves  capable  of  pronouncing  judgment  over 
the  whole  field.  Undoubtedly  there  is  this  danger; 
but  such  a  result  is  not  inevitable.  The  danger  is 
one  which  we  are  perfectly  capable  of  setting  aside. 
The  temper  of  our  mind  decides  the  matter,  and  this 
is  entirely  within  our  control.  What  is  the  use  of  our 
going  forth  presumptuous  persons  ?  We  certainly 
shall  be  unserviceable  if  we  are  persons  of  that  type. 
That  is  not  the  type  of  Charles  Darwin  in  biology, 
of  William  James  in  psychology,  of  Horace  Howard 
Furness  in  Shakespeare  criticism,  of  Albert  Michel- 
son  in  physics.  These  are  men  as  remarkable  for 


SPECIALIZATION  141 

modesty  and  simplicity  as  for  scholarly  insight.  The 
true  characteristic  of  a  learned  specialist  is  humility. 
What  we  want  to  be  training  ourselves  in  is  respect 
for  other  people  and  a  sense  of  solidarity  with  them. 
Our  work  would  be  of  little  use  if  there  were  not 
somebody  at  our  side  who  cared  nothing  for  that 
work  of  ours  and  cared  immensely  for  his  own.  It 
is  our  business  to  respect  that  other  man,  whether 
he  respects  us  or  not.  We  must  learn  to  look  upon 
every  specialist  as  a  fellow  worker.  Without  him  we 
cannot  be  perfect.  Let  us  make  ourselves  as  large 
as  possible,  in  order  that  we  may  contribute  our  little 
something  to  that  to  which  all  others  are  contributing. 
It  is  this  cooperative  spirit  which  it  should  be  ours 
to  acquire.  And  it  seems  to  me  that  you  are  under 
peculiarly  fortunate  circumstances  for  acquiring  it. 
What  strikes  me  as  fatal  is  to  have  a  group  of  young 
specialists  taken  and  trained  by  themselves,  de- 
tachedly,  shut  off  from  others.  Nothing  of  that  sort 
occurs  here.  Every  day  you  are  rubbing  shoulders 
with  persons  who  have  other  interests  than  yours. 
When  you  walk  to  dinner,  you  fall  in  with  a  comrade 
who  has  been  spending  his  day  over  something  widely 
unlike  that  which  has  concerned  you.  Possibly  you 
have  been  able  to  lead  him  to  talk  about  it ;  possibly 
you  have  gained  an  insight  into  what  he  was  seeking, 
and  seen  how  his  work  largely  supplements  your  own. 
If  you  have  had  proper  respect  for  him  and  proper 


142  SPECIALIZATION 

humility  in  regard  to  yourself,  this  great  society  of 
specialists  has  filled  out  your  work  for  you  day  after 
day ;  and  in  that  sense  of  cooperation,  of  losing  your- 
selves in  the  common  service  of  scientific  mankind, 
you  have  found  the  veritable  glory  of  these  happy 
years. 


VII 

THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT1 

A  FEW  years  ago  Matthew  Arnold,  after  travelling 
in  this  country  and  revising  the  somewhat  unfavor- 
able opinion  of  us  which  he  had  formed  earlier  and  at 
a  distance,  still  wrote  in  his  last  paper  on  Civiliza- 
tion in  the  United  States  that  America,  in  spite  of 
its  excellences,  is  an  uninteresting  land.  He  thought 
our  institutions  remarkable.  He  pointed  out  how 
close  a  fit  exists  between  them  and  the  character  of 
the  citizens,  a  fit  so  close  as  is  hardly  to  be  found 
in  other  countries.  He  saw  much  that  is  of  promise 
in  our  future.  But  after  all,  he  declares  that  no  man 
will  live  here  if  he  can  live  elsewhere,  because  Amer- 
ica is  an  uninteresting  land. 

This  remark  of  Mr.  Arnold's  is  one  which  we  may 
well  ponder.  As  I  consider  how  many  of  you  are 
preparing  to  go  forth  from  college  and  establish 
yourselves  in  this  country,  I  ask  myself  whether 
you  must  find  your  days  uninteresting.  You  cer- 
tainly have  not  been  finding  them  uninteresting  here. 
Where  were  college  days  ever  dull  ?  It  is  a  beauti- 
ful circumstance  that,  the  world  over,  the  period  of 

1  Delivered  at  the  first  commencement  of  the  Woman's  College 
of  Western  Reserve  University. 


144    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

education  is  the  period  of  romance.  No  such  thing 
•was  ever  heard  of  as  a  college  student  who  did  not 
enjoy  himself,  a  college  student  who  was  not  full  of 
hope.  And  if  this  has  been  the  case  with  us  prosaic 
males  of  the  past,  what  must  be  the  experience  of 
your  own  hopeful  sex  ?  I  am  sure  you  are  looking  for- 
ward with  eagerness  to  your  intended  work.  Is  it 
to  be  blighted  ?  Are  you  to  find  life  dull  ?  It  might 
seem  from  the  remark  of  Mr.  Arnold  that  it  would 
probably  be  so,  for  you  must  live  in  an  uninteresting 
land. 

When  this  remark  of  Mr.  Arnold's  was  first  made 
a  multitude  of  voices  in  all  parts  of  our  country  de- 
clared that  Mr.  Arnold  did  not  know  what  he  was 
talking  about.  As  a  stupid  Englishman  he  had  come 
here  and  had  failed  to  see  what  our  land  contains. 
In  reality  every  corner  of  it  is  stuffed  with  that 
beauty  and  distinction  which  he  denied.  For  that 
was  the  offensive  feature  of  his  statement:  he  had 
said  in  substance  the  chief  sources  of  interest  are 
beauty  and  distinction.  America  is  not  beautiful. 
Its  scenery,  its  people,  its  past,  are  not  distinguished. 
It  is  impossible,  therefore,  for  an  intelligent  and  cul- 
tivated man  to  find  permanent  interests  here. 

The  ordinary  reply  to  these  unpleasant  sayings  was, 
"America  is  beautiful,  America  is  distinguished." 
But  on  the  face  of  the  matter  this  reply  might  well 
be  distrusted.  Mr.  Arnold  is  not  a  man  likely  to 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT  145 

make  such  a  mistake.  He  is  a  trained  observer. 
His  life  has  been  passed  in  criticism,  and  criticism  of 
an  extremely  delicate  sort.  It  seems  to  me  it  must  be 
rather  his  standards  than  his  facts  which  are  at 
fault.  Many  of  us  would  be  slow  to  believe  our 
teacher  had  made  an  error  in  observation ;  for  to 
many  of  us  he  has  been  a  very  great  teacher  indeed. 
Through  him  we  have  learned  the  charm  of  sim- 
plicity, the  refinement  of  exactitude,  the  strength  of 
finished  form ;  we  have  learned  calmness  in  trial  too, 
the  patience  of  duty,  ability  to  wait  when  in  doubt ; 
in  short,  we  have  learned  dignity,  and  he  who  teaches 
us  dignity  is  not  a  man  lightly  to  be  forgotten  or  dis- 
paraged. I  say,  therefore,  that  this  answer  to  Mr. 
Arnold,  that  he  was  in  error,  is  one  which  on  its  face 
might  prudently  be  distrusted. 

But  for  other  than  prudential  reasons  I  incline  to 
agree  with  Mr.  Arnold's  opinion.  Even  though  I 
were  not  naturally  disposed  to  credit  his  judgment, 
I  should  be  obliged  to  acknowledge  that  my  own 
observations  largely  coincide  with  his.  In  Europe  I 
think  I  find  beauty  more  abundant  than  in  America. 
Certainly  the  distinguished  objects,  the  distinguished 
persons,  whom  I  go  there  to  see,  are  more  numerous 
than  those  I  might  by  searching  find  here.  I  cannot 
think  this  portion  of  Mr.  Arnold's  statement  can  be 
impugned.  And  must  we  then  accept  his  conclusion 
and  agree  that  your  lives,  while  sheltered  in  this  in- 


146    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

teresting  college,  are  themselves  interesting ;  but  that 
when  you  go  forth  the  romance  is  to  pass  away? 
I  do  not  believe  it,  because  I  question  the  standard 
which  Mr.  Arnold  employs.  He  tells  us  that  the 
sources  of  the  interesting  are  beauty  and  distinction. 
I  doubt  it.  However  much  delight  and  refreshment 
these  may  contribute  to  our  lives,  I  do  not  believe 
they  predominantly  constitute  our  interests. 

Evidently  Mr.  Arnold  cannot  have  reached  his 
opinion  through  observation,  for  the  commonest  facts 
of  experience  confute  him.  There  is  in  every  com- 
munity a  certain  class  of  persons  whose  business  it 
is  to  discover  what  people  regard  as  interesting. 
These  are  the  newspaper  editors;  they  are  paid  to 
find  out  for  us  interesting  matters  every  day.  There 
is  nothing  they  like  better  than  to  get  hold  of  some- 
thing interesting  which  has  not  been  observed  before. 
Are  they  then  searchers  for  beauty  and  distinction  ? 
I  should  say  not.  Here  are  the  subjects  which  these 
seekers  after  interesting  things  discussed  in  my 
morning  paper.  There  is  an  account  of  disturb- 
ances in  South  America.  There  is  a  statement  about 
Mr.  Elaine's  health.  There  is  a  report  of  a  prize 
fight.  There  are  speculations  about  the  next  general 
election.  There  is  a  description  of  a  fashionable  wed- 
ding. These  things  interest  me,  and  I  suspect  they 
interest  the  majority  of  the  readers  of  that  paper; 
though  they  can  hardly  be  called  beautiful  or  distin- 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT  147 

guished.  Obviously,  therefore,  if  Mr.  Arnold  had 
inspected  the  actual  interests  of  to-day,  he  would 
have  been  obliged  to  recognize  some  other  basis  for 
them  than  beauty  and  distinction. 

Yet  I  suppose  all  will  feel  it  would  be  better  if 
the  trivial  matters  which  excite  our  interest  in  the 
morning  journal  were  of  a  more  beautiful,  of  a  more 
distinguished  sort.  Our  interests  would  be  more  hon- 
orable then.  These  things  interest  merely  because 
they  are  facts,  not  because  they  are  beautiful.  A  fact 
is  interesting  through  being  a  fact,  and  this  common- 
est and  most  basal  of  interests  Mr.  Arnold  has  over- 
looked. He  has  not  perceived  that  life  itself  is  its 
own  unceasing  interest. 

Before  we  can  decide,  however,  whether  he  has 
overlooked  anything  more,  we  must  determine  what 
is  meant  by  beauty.  Let  us  analyze  the  matter  a 
little.  Let  us  see  if  we  can  detect  why  the  beauti- 
ful and  the  distinguished  are  interesting,  and  still 
how  we  can  provide  a  place  for  the  other  interests 
which  are  omitted  in  his  statement.  If  we  should 
look  at  a  tree  and  ask  ourselves  why  this  tree  is 
more  beautiful  than  another,  we  should  probably 
find  we  had  thought  it  so  on  some  such  grounds  as 
these:  the  total  bunch  of  branches  and  leaves,  that 
exquisite  green  mass  sunning  itself,  is  no  larger  than 
can  well  be  supported  on  the  brown  trunk.  It  is 
large  enough;  there  is  nothing  lacking.  If  it  were 


148    THE  GLORY  OP  THE  IMPERFECT 

smaller,  the  office  of  the  trunk  would  hardly  be  ful- 
filled. If  larger,  the  trunk  would  be  overpowered. 
Those  branches  which  extend  themselves  to  the  right 
adequately  balance  those  which  are  extended  to  the 
left.  Scrutinizing  it,  we  find  every  leaf  in  order, 
each  one  ready  to  aerate  its  little  sap  and  so  con- 
duce to  the  life  of  the  whole.  There  is  no  decay, 
no  broken  branch.  Nothing  is  deficient,  but  at  the 
same  time  there  is  nothing  superfluous.  Each  part 
ministers  to  every  part.  In  all  parts  the  tree  is  pro- 
portionate —  beautiful,  intrinsically  beautiful,  be- 
cause it  is  unsuperfluous,  unlacking. 

And  when  we  turn  to  other  larger,  more  intricately 
beautiful  objects,  we  find  the  same  principle  involved. 
Fulness  of  relations  among  the  parts,  perfection  of 
organism,  absence  of  incongruity,  constitute  the 
beauty  of  the  object.  Were  you  ever  in  Wiltshire 
in  England,  and  did  you  visit  the  splendid  seat  of 
the  Earls  of  Pembroke,  Wilton  House  ?  It  is  a  mag- 
nificent pile,  designed  by  Holbein  the  painter,  erected 
before  Elizabeth  began  to  reign.  Its  green  lawns, 
prepared  ages  ago,  were  adapted  to  their  positions 
originally  and  perform  their  ancient  offices  to-day. 
Time  has  changed  its  gardens  only  by  making  them 
more  lovely  than  when  they  were  planned.  So  har- 
monious with  one  another  are  grounds  and  castle 
that,  looking  on  the  stately  dwelling,  one  imagines 
that  the  Creator  himself  must  have  had  it  in  mind  in 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT  149 

his  design  of  the  spot.  And  when  you  enter,  all  is 
equally  congruous.  Around  the  central  court  runs 
the  cloistered  statuary  gallery,  out  of  which  open 
the  several  halls.  Passing  through  these,  you  notice 
the  portraits  not  only  of  past  members  of  the  family 
^—  men  who  have  been  among  the  most  distinguished 
of  England's  worthies  —  but  also  portraits  of  the 
eminent  friends  of  the  Pembrokes,  painted  by  nota- 
ble artists  who  were  often  themselves  also  friends 
of  the  family.  In  the  library  is  shown  Sidney's 
"Arcadia,"  written  in  this  very  garden,  with  a  lock 
of  Elizabeth's  hair  inclosed.  In  the  chief  hall  a  play 
of  Shakespeare's  is  reported  to  have  been  performed 
by  his  company.  Half  a  dozen  names  that  shine  in 
literature  lend  intellectual  glory  to  the  place.  But 
as  you  walk  from  room  to  room,  amazed  at  the  accu- 
mulation of  wealth  and  proud  tradition,  you  perceive 
how  each  casual  object  makes  its  separate  contri- 
bution to  the  general  impression  of  stateliness.  A 
glance  from  a  window  discloses  an  enchanting  view : 
in  the  distance,  past  the  cedars,  rises  the  spire  of 
Salisbury  Cathedral,  one  of  the  most  peaceful  and 
aspiring  in  England.  All  parts  —  scenery,  buildings, 
rich  possessions,  historic  heritages  —  minister  to  parts. 
Romantic  imagination  is  stirred.  It  is  beautiful, 
beautiful  beyond  anything  America  can  show. 

And  if  We  turn  to  that  region  where  beauty  is 
most  subtly  embodied,  if  we  turn  to  human  character, 


150    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

we  find  the  conditions  not  dissimilar.  The  character 
which  impresses  us  most  is  that  which  has  fully  or- 
ganized its  powers,  so  that  every  ability  finds  its 
appropriate  place  without  prominence;  one  with  no 
false  humility  and  without  self-assertion ;  a  character 
which  cannot  be  overthrown  by  petty  circumstance, 
but,  steadfast  in  itself,  no  part  lacking,  no  part  su- 
perfluous, easily  lets  its  ample  functions  assist  one 
another  in  all  that  they  are  summoned  to  perform. 
When  we  behold  a  man  like  this,  we  say,  "This  is 
what  I  would  be.  Here  is  the  goal  toward  which  I 
would  tend.  This  man,  like  Wilton  House,  like  the 
beautiful  tree,  is  a  finished  thing."  It  is  true  when 
we  turn  our  attention  back  and  once  more  criticise, 
we  see  that  it  is  not  so.  No  human  character  can  be 
finished.  It  is  its  glory  that  it  cannot  be.  It  must 
ever  press  forward;  each  step  reached  is  but  the 
vantage-ground  for  a  further  step.  There  is  no  com- 
pleteness in  human  character  —  in  human  character 
save  one. 

And  must  we  then  consider  human  character  unin- 
teresting ?  According  to  Mr.  Arnold's  standard  per- 
haps we  ought  to  do  so.  But  through  this  very  case 
the  narrowness  of  that  standard  becomes  apparent. 
Mr.  Arnold  rightly  perceives  that  beauty  is  one  of 
our  higher  interests.  It  certainly  is  not  our  only  or 
our  highest,  because  in  that  which  is  most  profoundly 
interesting,  human  life,  the  completeness  of  parts 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT  151 

which  constitutes  beauty  is  never  reached.  There 
must  obviously  be  another  and  a  higher  source  of 
interest,  one  too  exalted  to  be  found  where  awhile 
ago  I  sketched  it,  in  the  mere  occurrence  of  a  fact. 
We  cannot  say  that  all  events,  simply  because  they 
occur,  are  alike  interesting.  To  find  in  them  an  in- 
telligent interest  we  must  rate  their  worth.  I  agree, 
accordingly,  with  Mr.  Arnold  in  thinking  that  it  is 
the  passion  for  perfection,  the  assessment  of  worths, 
which  is  at  the  root  of  all  enduring  interests.  But  I 
believe  that  in  the  history  of  the  world  this  passion  for 
perfection,  this  deepest  root  of  human  interests,  has 
presented  itself  in  two  forms.  The  Greek  conceived 
it  in  one  way,  the  Christian  has  conceived  it  in  an- 
other. 

It  was  the  office  of  that  astonishing  people,  the 
Greeks,  to  teach  us  to  honor  completeness,  the  ma- 
jesty of  the  rounded  whole.  We  see  this  in  every 
department  of  their  marvellous  life.  Whenever  we 
look  at  a  Greek  statue,  it  seems  impossible  that  it 
should  be  otherwise  without  loss ;  we  cannot  imagine 
any  portion  changed ;  the  thing  has  reached  its  com- 
pleteness. Before  it  we  can  only  bow  and  feel  at 
rest.  Just  so  it  is  when  we  examine  Greek  archi- 
tecture. There  too  we  find  the  same  ordered  pro- 
portion, the  same  adjustment  of  part  to  part.  And 
if  we  turn  to  Greek  literature,  the  stately  symme- 
try is  no  less  remarkable.  What  page  of  Sophocles 


152    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

could  be  stricken  out?  What  page  —  what  sen- 
tence? Just  enough,  not  more  than  enough!  The 
thought  has  grown,  has  asserted  its  entirety;  and 
when  that  entirety  has  been  reached,  it  has  stopped, 
delighted  with  its  own  perfection.  A  splendid  ideal, 
an  ideal  which  never  can  fail,  I  am  sure,  to  interest 
man  so  long  as  he  remains  intelligent! 

And  yet  this  beautiful  Greek  work  shows  only  one 
aspect  of  the  world.  It  omitted  something,  it  omitted 
formative  life.  Joy  in  birth,  delight  in  beginnings, 
interest  in  origins,  —  these  things  did  not  belong  to 
the  Greek;  they  came  in  with  Christianity.  It  is 
Jesus  Christ  who  turns  our  attention  toward  growth, 
and  so  teaches  us  to  delight  in  the  imperfect  rather 
than  in  the  perfect.  It  is  he  who,  wishing  to  give  to 
his  disciples  a  model  of  what  they  should  be,  does  not 
select  the  completed  man,  but  takes  the  little  child 
and  sets  him  before  them  and  to  the  supercilious 
says,  "Take  heed  that  ye  despise  not  one  of  these 
little  ones."  He  teaches  us  to  reverence  the  begin- 
ning of  things.  And  at  first  thought  it  might  well 
seem  that  this  reverence  for  the  imperfect  was  a  re- 
trogression. What!  is  not  a  consummate  man  more 
admirable  than  a  child?  "No,"  Jesus  answered; 
and  because  he  answered  so,  pity  was  born.  Before 
the  coming  of  Jesus  Christ,  I  think  we  may  say  that 
the  sick,  the  afflicted,  the  child  — shall  I  not  say  the 
woman  ?  —  were  but  slightly  understood.  It  is  be- 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT  153 

cause  God  has  come  down  from  heaven,  manifest- 
ing even  himself  in  forms  of  imperfection,  it  is  on 
this  account  that  our  intellectual  horizon  has  been 
enlarged.  We  may  now  delight  in  the  lowly,  we  may 
stoop  and  gather  imperfect  things  and  rejoice  in 
them,  —  rejoice  beyond  the  old  Greek  rejoicing. 

Yet  it  is  easy  to  mistake  the  nature  of  this  change 
of  standard,  and  in  doing  so  to  run  into  gra»ve  moral 
danger.  If  we  content  ourselves  with  the  imperfect 
rather  than  with  the  perfect,  we  are  barbarians.  We 
are  not  Christians  nor  are  we  Greeks,  we  are  bar- 
barians. But  that  is  not  the  spirit  of  Jesus.  He 
teaches  us  to  catch  the  future  in  the  instant,  to  see 
the  infinite  in  the  finite,  to  watch  the  growth  of  the 
perfect  out  of  the  imperfect.  And  he  teaches  us  that 
this  delight  in  progress,  in  growth,  in  aspiration,  in 
completing,  may  rightly  be  greater  than  our  exulta- 
tion in  completeness.  In  his  view  the  joy  of  perfect- 
ing is  beyond  the  joy  of  perfection. 

Now  I  want  to  be  sure  that  you  young  women, 
who  are  preparing  yourselves  here  for  larger  life  and 
are  soon  to  emerge  into  the  perplexing  world,  go 
forth  with  clear  and  Christian  purpose.  For  though 
what  I  have  been  discussing  may  appear  dry  and  ab- 
stract, it  is  an  extremely  practical  matter.  Consider 
a  moment  in  which  direction  you  are  to  seek  the 
interests  of  your  life.  Will  you  demand  that  the 
things  about  you  shall  already  possess  their  perfec- 


154    THE   GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

tion?  Will  you  ask  from  life  that  it  be  completed, 
finished,  beautiful  ?  If  so,  you  are  doomed  to  dreary 
days.  Or  are  you  to  get  your  intellectual  eyes  open, 
see  beauty  in  the  making,  and  come  to  rejoice  in  it 
there  rather  than  after  it  is  made  ?  That  is  the  ques- 
tion I  wish  to  present  to-day ;  and  I  shall  ask  you  to 
examine  several  provinces  of  life  and  see  how  differ- 
ent they,  appear  when  surveyed  from  one  point  of 
view  or  from  the  other. 

Undoubtedly  all  of  you  on  leaving  here  will  go 
into  some  home,  either  the  home  of  your  parents  or 
—  less  fortunate  —  some  stranger's  home.  And  when 
you  come  there,  I  think  I  can  foretell  one  thing:  it 
will  be  a  tolerably  imperfect  place  in  which  you  find 
yourself.  You  will  notice  a  great  many  points  in 
which  it  is  improvable ;  that  is  to  say,  a  great  many 
respects  in  which  you  might  properly  wish  it  other- 
wise. It  will  seem  to  you,  I  dare  say,  a  little  plain, 
a  little  commonplace,  compared  with  your  beautiful 
college  and  the  college  life  here.  I  doubt  whether 
you  will  find  all  the  members  of  your  family  —  dear 
though  they  may  be  —  so  wise,  so  gentle-mannered, 
so  able  to  contribute  to  your  intellectual  life  as  are 
your  companions  here.  Will  you  feel  then,  "Ah! 
home  is  a  dull  place ;  I  wish  I  were  back  in  college 
again !  I  think  I  was  made  for  college  life.  Possibly 
enough  I  was  made  for  a  wealthy  life.  I  am  sure  I 
was  made  for  a  comfortable  life.  But  I  do  not  find 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT  155 

these  things  here.  I  will  sit  and  wish  I  had  them.  Of 
course  I  ought  not  to  enjoy  a*  home  that  is  short  of 
perfection ;  and  I  recognize  that  this  is  a  good  way 
from  complete."  Is  this  to  be  your  attitude  ?  Or  are 
you  going  to  say,  "  How  interesting  this  home !  What 
a  brave  struggle  the  dear  people  are  making  with  the 
resources  at  their  command !  What  kindness  is  shown 
by  my  tired  mother;  how  swift  she  is  in  finding  out 
the  many  small  wants  of  the  household !  How  dili- 
gent my  father !  Should  I,  if  I  had  had  only  their 
narrow  opportunities,  be  so  intelligent,  so  kind,  so 
self-sacrificing  as  they  ?  What  can  I  do  to  show  them 
my  gratitude?  What  can  I  contribute  toward  the 
furtherance,  the  enlargement,  the  perfecting,  of  this 
home?"  That  is  the  wise  course.  Enter  this  home 
not  merely  as  a  matter  of  loving  duty,  but  find  in  it 
also  your  own  strong  interests,  and  learn  to  say,  "  This 
home  is  not  a  perfect  home,  happily  not  a  perfect 
home.  I  have  something  here  to  do.  It  is  far  more 
interesting  than  if  it  were  already  complete." 

And  again,  you  will  not  always  live  in  a  place  so 
attractive  as  Cleveland.  There  are  cities  which  have 
not  your  beautiful  lake,  your  distant  views,  your 
charming  houses  excellently  shaded  with  trees.  These 
things  are  exceptional  and  cannot  always  be  yours. 
You  may  be  obliged  to  live  in  an  American  town 
which  appears  to  you  highly  unfinished,  a  town  which 
constantly  suggests  that  much  still  remains  to  be 


156    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

done.  And  then  are  you  going  to  say,  "  This  place  is 
not  beautiful,  and  I  of  course  am  a  lover  of  the  beau- 
tiful. How  could  one  so  superior  as  I  rest  in  such 
surroundings?  I  could  not  respect  myself  were  I 
not  discontented."  Is  that  to  be  your  attitude?  It 
is,  I  am  sorry  to  think,  the  attitude  of  many  who  go 
from  our  colleges.  They  have  been  taught  to  rever- 
ence perfection,  to  honor  excellence ;  and  instead  of 
making  it  their  work  to  carry  this  excellence  forth, 
and  to  be  interested  in  spreading  it  far  and  wide 
in  the  world,  they  sit  down  and  mourn  that  it  has 
not  yet  come.  How  dull  the  world  would  be  had  it 
come !  Perfection,  beauty  ?  It  constitutes  a  resting- 
place  for  us;  it  does  not  constitute  our  working- 
place. 

I  maintain,  therefore,  in  regard  to  our  land  as  a 
whole  that  there  is  no  other  so  interesting  on  the  face 
of  the  earth ;  and  I  am  led  to  this  conviction  by  the 
very  reasoning  which  brought  Mr.  Arnold  to  a  con- 
trary opinion.  I  accept  his  judgment  of  the  beauty 
of  America.  His  premise  is  correct,  but  it  should 
have  conducted  him  to  the  opposite  conclusion.  In 
America  we  still  are  in  the  making.  We  are  not  yet 
beautiful  and  distinguished ;  and  that  is  why  America, 
beyond  every  other  country,  awakens  a  noble  interest. 
The  beauty  which  is  in  the  old  lands,  and  which  re- 
freshes for  a  season,  is  after  all  a  species  of  death. 
Those  who  dwell  among  such  scenes  are  appeased, 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT  157 

they  are  not  quickened.  Let  them  keep  their  past; 
we  have  our  future.  We  may  do  much.  What  they 
can  do  is  largely  at  an  end. 

In  literature  also  I  wish  to  bring  these  distinctions 
before  you,  these  differences  of  standard ;  and  per- 
haps I  cannot  accomplish  this  better  than  by  exhibit- 
ing them  as  they  are  presented  in  a  few  verses  from 
the  poet  of  the  imperfect.  I  suppose  if  we  try  to 
mark  out  with  precision  the  work  of  Mr.  Browning, — 
I  mean  not  to  mark  it  out  as  the  Browning  societies 
do,  but  to  mark  it  out  with  precision,  —  we  might  say 
that  its  distinctive  feature  is  that  he  has  guided  him- 
self by  the  principle  on  which  I  have  insisted  :  he  has 
sought  for  beauty  where  there  is  seeming  chaos ;  he 
has  loved  growth,  has  prized  progress,  has  noted  the 
advance  of  the  spiritual,  the  pressing  on  of  the  finite 
soul  through  hindrance  to  its  junction  with  the  in- 
finite. This  it  is  which  has  inspired  his  somewhat 
crabbed  verses,  and  has  made  men  willing  to  undergo 
the  labor  of  reading  them,  that  they  too  may  partake 
of  his  insight.  In  one  of  his  poems  —  one  which 
seems  to  me  to  contain  some  of  his  sublimest  as  well 
as  some  of  his  most  commonplace  lines,  the  poem  on 
"  Old  Pictures  in  Florence,"  —  he  discriminates  be- 
tween Greek  and  Christian  art  in  much  the  same  way 
I  have  done.  In  "  Greek  Art,"  Mr.  Browning  says :  — 

You  saw  yourself  as  you  wished  you  were, 
As  you  might  have  been,  as  you  cannot  be; 


158    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

Earth  here,  rebuked  by  Olympus  there; 

And  grew  content  in  your  poor  degree 
With  your  little  power,  by  those  statues'  godhead, 

And  your  little  scope,  by  their  eyes'  full  sway, 
And  your  little  grace,  by  their  grace  embodied, 

And  your  little  date,  by  their  forms  that  stay. 

You  would  fain  be  kinglier,  say,  than  I  am? 

Even  so,  you  will  not  sit  like  Theseus. 
You  would  prove  a  model  ?  The  son  of  Priam 

Has  yet  the  advantage  in  arms'  and  knees'  use. 
You're  wioth  —  can  you  slay  your  snake  like  Apollo? 

You're  grieved  —  still  Niobe's  the  grander! 
You  live  —  there's  the  Racers'  frieze  to  follow: 

You  die  —  there's  the  dying  Alexander. 

So,  testing  your  weakness  by  their  strength, 
Your  meagre  charms  by  their  rounded  beauty, 

Measured  by  Art  in  your  breadth  and  length, 
You  learned  —  to  submit  is  a  mortal's  duty. 

Growth  came  when,  looking  your  last  on  them  all, 

You  turned  your  eyes  inwardly  one  fine  day 
And  cried  with  a  start  —  What  if  we  so  small 

Be  greater  and  grander  the  while  than  they! 
Are  they  perfect  of  lineament,  perfect  of  stature? 

In  both,  of  such  lower  types  are  we 
Precisely  because  of  our  wider  nature; 

For  time,  theirs  —  ours,  for  eternity. 

To-day's  brief  passion  limits  their  range; 

It  seethes  with  the  morrow  for  us  and  more. 
They  are  perfect  —  how  else  ?  they  shall  never  change : 

We  are  faulty  —  why  not  ?  we  have  time  in  store. 
The  Artificer's  hand  is  not  arrested 

With  us;  we  are  rough-hewn,  no- wise  polished: 
They  stand  .for  our  copy,  and  once  invested 

With  all  they  can  teach,  we  shall  see  them  abolished. 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT  159 

You  will  notice  that  in  this  subtle  study  Mr.  Brown- 
ing points  out  how  through  contact  with  perfection 
there  may  come  content  with  our  present  lot.  This 
I  call  the  danger  of  perfection,  our  possible  belittle- 
ment  through  beauty.  For  in  the  lives  of  us  all 
there  should  be  a  divine  discontent,  —  not  devilish  dis- 
content, but  divine  discontent,  —  a  consciousness  that 
life  may  be  larger  than  we  have  yet  attained,  that  we 
are  to  press  beyond  what  we  have  reached,  that  joy 
lies  in  the  future,  in  that  which  has  not  been  found, 
rather  than  in  the  realized  present.  And  it  seems  to 
me  if  ever  a  people  were  called  on  to  understand  this 
glory  of  the  imperfect,  it  is  we  of  America,  it  is  you 
of  the  Middle  West;  it  is  especially  you  who  are 
undertaking  here  the  experiment  of  a  woman's  col- 
lege. You  are  at  the  beginning,  and  that  fact  should 
lend  an  interest  to  your  work  which  cannot  so  read- 
ily be  realized  in  our  older  institutions.  As  you  look 
eastward  upon  my  own  huge  university,  Harvard 
University,  it  probably  appears  to  you  singularly 
beautiful,  reverend  in  its  age,  magnificent  in  its  en- 
dowments, equable  in  its  working ;  perhaps  you  con- 
template it  as  nearing  perfection,  and  contrast  your 
incipient  college  with  it  as  hardly  deserving  the  name. 
You  are  entirely  mistaken.  Harvard  University,  to 
its  glory  be  it  said,  is  enormously  unfinished;  it  is 
a  great  way  from  perfect ;  it  is  full  of  blemishes. 
We  are  tinkering  at  it  all  the  time ;  and  if  it  were  not 


160    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

so,  I  for  one  should  decline  to  be  connected  with  it. 
Its  interest  for  me  would  cease.  You  are  to  start 
free  from  some  trammels  that  we  feel.  Because  we 
have  so  large  a  past  laid  upon  us  we  have  not  some 
freedoms  of  growth,  some  opportunities  of  enlarge- 
ment, which  you  possess.  Accordingly,  in  your  very 
experiment  here  you  have  a  superb  illustration  of 
the  principle  I  am  trying  to  explain.  This  young 
and  imperfect  college  should  interest  you  who  are 
members  of  it ;  it  should  interest  this  intelligent  city. 
Wise  patrons  should  find  here  a  germ  capable  of  such 
broad  and  interesting  growth  as  may  well  call  out 
their  heartiest  enthusiasm. 

If  then  the  modes  of  accepting  the  passion  for 
perfection  are  so  divergent  as  I  have  indicated,  is  it 
possible  to  suggest  methods  by  which  we  may  disci- 
pline ourselves  in  the  nobler  way  of  seeking  the  in- 
terests of  life  ?  —  I  mean  by  taking  part  with  things 
in  their  beginnings,  learning  to  reverence  them  there, 
and  so  attaining  an  interest  which  will  continually 
be  supported  and  carried  forward.  You  may  look 
with  some  anxiety  upon  the  doctrine  which  I  have 
laid  down.  You  may  say,  "But  beauty  is  seductive; 
beauty  allures  me.  I  know  that  the  imperfect  in  its 
struggle  toward  perfection  is  the  nobler  matter.  I 
know  that  America  is,  for  him  who  can  see  all  things, 
a  more  interesting  land  than  Spain.  Yes,  I  know 
this,  but  I  find  it  hard  to  feel  it.  My  strong  tempta- 


THE   GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT    161 

tion  is  to  lie  and  dream  in  romance,  in  ideal  perfec- 
tion. By  what  means  may  I  discipline  myself  out  of 
this  degraded  habit  and  bring  myself  into  the  higher 
life,  so  that  I  shall  always  be  interested  in  progress, 
in  the  future  rather  than  in  the  past,  in  the  on-going 
rather  than  in  the  completed  life?"  I  cannot  give 
an  exact  and  final  receipt  for  this  better  mind.  A 
persistently  studied  experience  must  be  the  teacher. 
To-day  you  may  understand  what  I  say,  you  may 
resolve  to  live  according  to  the  methods  I  approve. 
But  you  may  be  sure  that  to-morrow  you  will  need 
to  learn  it  all  over  again.  And  yet  I  think  I  can 
mention  several  forms  of  discipline,  as  I  may  call 
them.  I  can  direct  your  attention  to  certain  modes 
by  which  you  may  instruct  yourselves  how  to  take 
an  interest  in  the  imperfect  thing,  and  still  keep  that 
interest  an  honorable  one. 

In  my  judgment,  then,  your  first  care  should  be  to 
learn  to  observe.  A  simple  matter  —  one,  I  dare  say, 
which  it  will  seem  to  you  difficult  to  avoid.  You 
have  a  pair  of  eyes;  how  can  you  fail  to  observe? 
Ah !  but  eyes  can  only  look,  and  that  is  not  observ- 
ing. We  must  not  rest  in  looking,  but  must  pene- 
trate into  things,  if  we  would  find  out  what  is  there. 
And  to  find  this  out  is  worth  while,  for  everything 
when  observed  is  of  immense  interest.  There  is  no 
object  so  remote  from  human  life  that  when  we  come 
to  study  it  we  may  not  detect  within  its  narrow  com- 


162    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

pass  illuminating  and  therefore  interesting  matter. 
But  it  makes  a  great  difference  whether  we  do  thus 
really  observe,  whether  we  hold  attention  to  the 
thing  in  hand,  and  see  what  it  contains.  Once,  after 
puzzling  long  over  the  charm  of  Homer,  I  applied  to 
a  learned  friend  and  said  to  him,  "  Can  you  tell  me 
why  Homer  is  so  interesting  ?  Why  can't  you  and  I 
write  as  he  wrote?  Why  is  it  that  his  art  is  lost, 
and  that  to-day  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  awaken  an 
interest  at  all  comparable  to  his?"  "Well,"  said 
my  friend,  "  I  have  often  meditated  on  that,  but  it 
seems  to  come  to  about  this :  Homer  looked  long  at 
a  thing.  Why,"  said  he,  "  do  you  know  that  if  you 
should  hold  up  your  thumb  and  look  at  it  long 
enough,  you  would  find  it  immensely  interesting?" 
Homer  looks  a  great  while  at  his  thumb.  He  sees 
precisely  the  thing  he  is  dealing  with.  He  does  not 
confuse  it  with  anything  else.  It  is  sharp  to  him; 
and  because  it  is  sharp  to  him  it  stands  out  sharply 
for  us  over  thousands  of  years.  Have  you  acquired 
this  art,  or  do  you  hastily  glance  at  insignificant 
objects  ?  Do  you  see  the  thing  exactly  as  it  is  ?  Do 
you  strip  away  from  it  your  own  likings  and  dislik- 
ings,  your  own  previous  notions  of  what  it  ought  to 
be  ?  Do  you  come  face  to  face  with  things  ?  If  you 
do,  the  hardest  situation  in  life  may  well  be  to  you  a 
delight.  For  you  will  not  regard  hardships,  but  only 
opportunities.  Possibly  you  may  even  feel,  "Yes, 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT  163 

here  are  just  the  difficulties  I  like  to  explore.  How 
can  one  be  interested  in  easy  things  ?  The  hard 
things  of  life  are  the  ones  for  which  we  ought  to  give 
thanks."  So  we  may  feel  if  we  have  made  the  cool 
and  hardy  temper  of  the  observer  our  own,  if  we  have 
learned  to  put  ourselves  into  a  situation  and  to  under- 
stand it  on  all  sides.  Why,  the  things  on  which  we 
have  thus  concentrated  attention  become  our  perma- 
nent interests.  For  example,  unluckily  when  I  was 
trained  I  was  not  disciplined  in  botany.  I  cannot, 
therefore,  now  observe  the  rose.  Some  of  you  can,  for 
you  have  been  studying  botany  here.  I  have  to  look 
stupidly  on  the  total  beauty  of  the  lovely  object;  I 
can  see  it  only  as  a  whole,  while  you,  fine  observer, 
who  have  trained  your  powers  to  pierce  it,  can  com- 
prehend its  very  structure  and  see  how  marvellously 
the  blooming  thing  is  put  together.  My  eyes  were 
dulled  to  that  long  ago ;  I  cannot  observe  it.  Beware, 
do  not  let  yourselves  grow  dull.  Observe,  observe, 
observe  in  every  direction !  Keep  your  eyes  open. 
Go  forward,  understanding  that  the  world  was  made 
for  your  knowledge,  that  you  have  the  right  to  enter 
into  and  possess  it. 

And  then  besides,  you  need  to  train  yourselves  to 
sympathize  with  that  which  lies  beyond  you.  It  is 
easy  to  sympathize  with  that  which  lies  within  you. 
Many  persons  go  through  life  sympathizing  with 
themselves  incessantly.  What  unhappy  persons! 


164    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

How  unfit  for  anything  important !  They  are  full  of 
themselves  and  answer  their  own  motion,  while  there 
beyond  them  lies  all  the  wealthy  world  in  which  they 
might  be  sharers.  For  sympathy  is  feeling  with,  — 
it  is  the  identification  of  ourself  with  that  which  at 
present  is  not  ourself.  It  is  going  forth  and  joining 
that  which  we  behold,  not  standing  aloof  and  merely 
observing,  as  I  said  at  first.  When  we  observe,  the 
object  we  observe  is  alien  to  us ;  when  we  sympathize, 
we  identify  ourselves  with  it.  You  may  go  into  a 
lome  and  observe,  and  you  will  make  every  person 
in  that  home  wretched.  But  go  into  a  home  and  sym- 
pathize, find  out  what  lies  beyond  you  there,  see  how 
differently  those  persons  are  thinking  and  feeling 
from  the  ways  in  which  you  are  accustomed  to  think 
and  feel ;  yet  notice  how  imperfect  you  are  in  your- 
self, and  how  important  it  is  that  persons  should  be 
fashioned  thus  different  from  you  if  even  your  own 
completion  is  to  come;  then,  I  say,  you  will  find 
yourself  becoming  large  in  your  own  being,  and  a 
large  benefactor  of  others. 

Do  not  stunt  sympathy,  then.  Do  not  allow  walls 
to  rise  up  and  hem  it  in.  Never  say  to  yourself, 
"This  is  my  way;  I  don't  do  so  and  so.  I  know  only 
this  and  that;  I  don't  want  to  know  anything  else. 
You  other  people  may  have  that  habit,  but  these  are 
my  habits,  and  I  always  do  thus  and  thus."  Do  not 
say  that.  Nothing  is  more  immoral  than  moral  psy- 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT  165 

chology.  You  should  have  no  interest  in  yourself  as 
you  stand ;  because  a  larger  selfhood  lies  beyond  you, 
and  you  should  be  going  forth  and  claiming  your 
heritage  there.  Do  not  stand  apart  from  the  move- 
ments of  the  country,  — *•  the  political,  charitable, 
religious,  scientific,  literary  movements,  —  however 
distastefully  they  may  strike  you.  Identify  yourself 
with  them,  sympathize  with  them.  They  all  have  a 
noble  side;  seek  it  out  and  claim  it  as  your  own. 
Throw  yourself  into  all  life  and  make  it  nobly  yours. 
But  I  am  afraid  it  would  be  impossible  for  you 
thus  to  observe,  thus  to  sympathize,  unless  you  bring 
within  your  imperfect  self  just  grounds  of  self-respect. 
You  must  contribute  to  things  if  you  would  draw  from 
things.  You  must  already  have  acquired  some  sort 
of  excellence  in  order  to  detect  larger  excellence  else- 
where. You  should  therefore  have  made  yourself  the 
master  of  something  which  you  can  do,  and  do  on  the 
whole  better  than  anybody  else.  That  is  the  moral 
aspect  of  competition,  that  one  person  can  do  a  cer- 
tain thing  best  and  so  it  is  given  him  to  do.  Some  of 
you  who  are  going  out  into  the  world  before  long  will, 
I  fear,  be  astonished  to  find  that  the  world  is  already 
full.  It  has  no  place  for  you;  it  never  anticipated 
your  coming  and  it  has  reserved  for  you  no  corner. 
Your  only  means  of  gaining  a  corner  will  be  by  doing 
something  better  than  the  people  who  are  already 
there.  Then  they  will  make  you  a  place.  And  that 


166    THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT 

is  what  you  should  be  considering  here.  You  should 
be  training  yourself  to  do  something  well,  it  really 
does  not  matter  much  what.  Can  you  make  dresses 
well  ?  Can  you  cook  a  good  loaf  of  bread  ?  Can  you 
write  a  poem  or  run  a  typewriter  ?  Can  you  do  any- 
thing well  ?  Are  you  a  master  somewhere  ?  If  you 
are,  the  world  will  have  a  place  for  you ;  and  more 
than  that,  you  will  have  within  yourself  just  grounds 
for  self-respect. 

To  sum  up,  what  I  have  been  saying  throughout 
this  address  merely  amounts  to  this :  that  the  imper- 
fect thing  —  the  one  thing  of  genuine  interest  in  all 
the  world  —  gets  its  right  to  be  respected  only  through 
its  connection  with  the  totality  of  things.  Do  not, 
then,  when  you  leave  college  say  to  yourself,  "  I  know 
Greek.  That  is  a  splendid  thing  to  know.  These 
people  whom  I  am  meeting  do  not  know  it  and  are 
obviously  of  a  lower  grade  than  I."  That  will  not 
be  self-respectful,  because  it  shows  that  you  have  not 
understood  your  proper  place.  You  should  respect 
yourself  as  a  part  of  all,  and  not  as  of  independent 
worth.  To  call  this  wide  world  our  own  larger  self 
is  not  too  extravagant  an  expression.  But  if  we  are 
to  count  it  so,  then  we  must  count  the  particular 
thing  which  we  are  capable  of  doing  as  merely  our 
special  contribution  to  the  great  self.  And  we  must 
understand  that  many  are  making  similar  contribu- 
tions. What  I  want  you  to  feel,  therefore,  is  the 


THE  GLORY  OF  THE  IMPERFECT  167 

profound  conception  of  mutual  helpfulness  and  re- 
sulting individual  dignity  which  St.  Paul  has  set 
forth,  according  to  which  each  of  us  is  performing  a 
special  function  in  the  common  life,  and  that  life  of 
all  is  recognized  as  the  divine  life,  the  manifestation 
of  the  life  of  the  Father.  When  you  have  come  to 
that  point,  when  you  have  seen  in  the  imperfect  a 
portion,  an  aspect,  of  the  total,  perfect,  divine  life, 
then  I  am  not  afraid  life  will  be  uninteresting.  In- 
deed I  would  say  to  every  one  who  goes  from  this 
college,  you  can  count  with  confidence  on  a  life  which 
shall  be  vastly  more  interesting  beyond  the  college 
walls  than  ever  it  has  proved  here,  if  you  have  once 
acquired  the  art  of  penetrating  into  the  imperfect,  and 
finding  in  limited,  finite  life  the  infinite  life.  "To 
apprehend  thus,  draws  us  a  profit  from  all  things  we 
see." 


II 

HARVARD  PAPERS 


HARVARD   PAPERS 

THE  following  papers  relate  primarily  to  Harvard  Uni- 
versity and  are  chiefly  of  historic  interest.  But  since  out 
of  that  centre  of  investigation  and  criticism  has  come  a 
large  part  of  what  is  significant  in  American  education, 
the  story  of  its  experiences  will  be  found  pretty  generally 
instructive  for  whoever  would  teach  or  learn. 

The  first  three  papers  were  published  in  the  Andover 
Review  for  1885,  1886,  and  1887,  and  are  now  printed 
without  alteration.  Time  has  changed  most  of  the  facts 
recorded  in  these  papers,  and  the  University  is  now  a  dif- 
ferent place  from  the  one  depicted  here.  An  educational 
revolution  was  then  in  progress,  more  influential  than  any 
which  has  ever  visited  our  country  before  or  since.  Har- 
vard was  its  leader,  and  had  consequently  become  an  object 
of  suspicion  through  wide  sections  of  the  land.  I  was  one 
of  those  who  sought  to  allay  those  suspicions  and  to  clear 
up  some  of  the  mental  confusions  in  which  they  arose.  To- 
day Harvard's  cause  is  won.  All  courses  leading  to  the 
Bachelor's  degree  throughout  the  country  now  recognize 
the  importance  of  personal  choice.  But  the  history  of  the 
struggle  exhibits  with  peculiar  distinctness  a  conflict  which 
perpetually  goes  on  between  two  currents  of  human  pro- 
gress, a  conflict  whose  opposing  ideals  are  almost  equally 
necessary  and  whose  champions  never  fail  alike  to  awaken 
sympathy.  As  a  result  of  this  struggle  our  children  enjoy 
an  ampler  heritage  than  was  open  to  us  their  fathers.  Do 
they  comprehend  their  added  wealth  and  turn  it  to  the 
high  uses  for  which  it  was  designed  ?  In  good  measure 
they  do.  A  brief  consideration  of  the  ethical  aims  which 


172  HARVARD  PAPERS 

have  shaped  the  modern  college  may  enable  them  to  do 
so  still  more. 

Appended  to  these  are  two  papers:  one  on  college 
economics  in  1887,  describing  the  first  attempt  ever  made, 
I  believe,  to  ascertain  from  students  themselves  the  cost 
of  the  higher  education;  the  other  setting  forth  a  pictur- 
esque and  noble  figure  who  belonged  to  the  days  before 
the  Flood,  when  the  prescribed  system  was  still  supreme. 


VIII 
THE  NEW  EDUCATION 

DURING  the  year  1884-85  the  freshmen  of  Har- 
vard College  chose  a  majority  of  their  studies.  Up 
to  that  time  no  college,  so  far  as  I  know,  allowed  its 
first  year's  men  any  choice  whatever.  Occasion- 
ally, one  modern  language  has  been  permitted  rather 
than  another;  and  where  colleges  are  organized  by 
"  schools,"  —  that  is,  with  independent  groups  of 
studies  each  leading  to  a  different  degree,  —  the 
freshman  by  entering  one  school  turns  away  from 
others,  and  so  exercises  a  kind  of  selection.  But  with 
these  possible  exceptions,  the  same  studies  have  al- 
ways been  required  of  all  the  members  of  a  given 
freshman  class.  Under  the  new  Harvard  rules,  but 
seven  sixteenths  of  the  work  of  the  freshman  year 
will  be  prescribed;  the  entire  remainder  of  the  col- 
lege course,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  exercises  in 
English  composition,  will  be  elective.  A  fragment  of 
prescribed  work  so  inconsiderable  is  likely  soon  to 
disappear.  At  no  distant  day  the  Harvard  student 
will  mark  out  for  himself  his  entire  curriculum  from 
entrance  to  graduation. 

Even  if  this  probable  result  should  not  follow,  the 


174  THE  NEW  EDUCATION 

present  step  toward  it  is  too  significant  to  be  passed 
over  in  silence,  for  it  indicates  that  after  more  than 
half  a  century  of  experiment  the  Harvard  Faculty 
are  convinced  of  the  worth  of  the  elective  system. 
In  their  eyes,  option  is  an  engine  of  efficiency.  People 
generally  treat  it  as  a  concession.  Freedom  is  con- 
fessedly agreeable ;  restive  boys  like  it ;  let  them  have 
as  much  as  will  not  harm  them.  But  the  Harvard 
authorities  mean  much  more  than  this.  They  have 
thrown  away  that  established  principle  of  American 
education,  that  every  head  should  contain  a  given 
kind  of  knowledge;  and  having  already  organized 
their  college  from  the  top  almost  to  the  bottom  on  a 
wholly  different  plan,  they  now  declare  that  their 
new  principle  has  been  proved  so  safe  and  effective 
that  it  should  supplant  the  older  method,  even  in 
that  year  when  students  are  acknowledged  to  be 
least  capable  of  self-direction. 

On  what  facts  do  they  build  such  confidence  ? 
What  do  they  mean  by  calling  their  elective  prin- 
ciple a  system?  Does  not  the  new  method,  while 
rendering  education  more  agreeable,  tend  to  lower 
its  standard  ?  Or,  if  it  succeeds  in  stimulating  tech- 
nical scholarship,  is  it  equally  successful  in  fostering 
character  and  in  forming  vigorous  and  law-rever- 
ing men  ?  These  questions  I  propose  to  answer,  for 
they  are  questions  which  every  friend  of  Harvard, 
and  indeed  of  American  education,  wishes  people 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  175 

pressingly  to  ask.  Those  most  likely  to  ask  them  are 
quiet,  God-fearing  parents,  who,  having  bred  their 
sons  to  a  sense  of  duty,  expect  college  life  to  broaden 
and  consolidate  the  discipline  of  the  home.  These 
are  the  parents  every  college  wants  to  reach.  Their 
sons,  whether  rich  or  poor,  are  the  bone  and  sinew 
of  the  land.  In  my  judgment  the  new  education, 
once  understood,  will  appeal  to  them  more  strongly 
than  to  any  other  class. 

But  it  is  not  easy  to  understand  it.  My  own  un- 
derstanding of  it  has  been  of  slow  growth.  When, 
in  1870,  I  left  Andover  Seminary  and  came  to  teach 
at  Harvard,  I  distrusted  the  more  extreme  develop- 
ments of  the  elective  system.  Up  to  1876  I  opposed 
the  introduction  of  voluntary  attendance  at  recita- 
tions. Not  until  four  years  ago  did  I  begin  to  favor 
the  remission  of  Greek  in  the  requisites  for  entrance. 
In  all  these  cases  my  party  was  defeated;  my  fears 
proved  groundless ;  what  I  wished  to  accomplish  was 
effected  by  means  which  I  had  opposed.  I  am  there- 
fore that  desirable  persuader,  the  man  who  has  him- 
self been  persuaded.  The  misconceptions  through 
which  I  passed,  I  am  sure  beset  others.  I  want  to 
clear  them  away,  and  to  present  some  of  the  reasons 
which  have  turned  me  from  an  adherent  of  the  old  to 
an  apostle  of  the  new  faith. 

An  elementary  misconception  deserves  a  passing 
word.  The  new  system  is  not  a  mere  cutting  of 


176  THE  NEW  EDUCATION 

straps ;  it  is  a  system.  Its  student  is  still  under  bonds, 
bonds  more  compulsive  than  the  old,  because  fitted 
with  nicer  adjustment  to  each  one's  person.  On 
H.  M.  S.  Pinafore  the  desires  of  every  sailor  receive 
instant  recognition.  The  new  education  will  not  agree 
to  that.  It  remains  authoritative.  It  will  not  subject 
its  student  to  alien  standards,  nor  treat  his  deliberate 
wishes  as  matters  of  no  consequence ;  but  it  does  in- 
sist on  that  authority  which  reveals  to  a  man  his  own 
better  purposes  and  makes  them  firmer  and  finer  than 
they  could  have  become  if  directed  by  himself  alone. 
What  the  amount  of  a  young  man's  study  shall  be, 
and  what  its  grade  of  excellence,  a  body  of  experts 
decides.  The  student  himself  determines  its  specific 
topic. 

Everybody  knows  how  far  this  is  from  a  pre- 
scribed system;  not  so  many  see  that  it  is  at  a 
considerable  remove  from  unregulated  or  nomadic 
study.  An  American  at  a  German  university,  or  at 
a  summer  school  of  languages,  applies  for  no  degree 
and  is  under  no  restraint.  He  chooses  whatever 
studies  he  likes,  ten  courses  or  five  or  one ;  he  works 
on  them  as  much  as  suits  his  need  or  his  caprice ;  he 
submits  what  he  does  to  no  test ;  he  receives  no  mark ; 
the  time  he  wastes  is  purely  his  own  concern.  Study 
like  this,  roving  study,  is  not  systematic  at  all.  It 
is  advantageous  to  adult  students,  —  to  those  alone 
whose  wills  are  steady,  and  who  know  their  own 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  177 

wants  precisely.  Most  colleges  draw  a  sharp  dis- 
tinction between  the  small  but  important  body  of 
students  of  this  class  —  special  students,  as  they  are 
called  —  and  the  great  company  of  regulars.  These 
latter  are  candidates  for  a  degree,  are  under  constant 
inspection,  and  are  moved  along  the  line  only  as  they 
attain  a  definite  standard  in  both  the  quantity  and 
quality  of  their  work.  After  accomplishing  the 
studies  of  the  freshman  year,  partly  prescribed  and 
partly  elective,  a  Harvard  student  must  pass  suc- 
cessfully four  elective  courses  in  each  of  his  subse- 
quent three  years.  By  "a  course"  is  understood  a 
single  line  of  study  receiving  three  hours  a  week  of 
instruction ;  fifty  per  cent  of  a  maximum  mark  must 
be  won  in  each  year  in  order  to  pass.  Throwing  out 
the  freshman  year,  the  precise  meaning  of  the  Har- 
vard B.  A.  degree  is  therefore  this :  its  holder  has 
presented  twelve  courses  of  study  selected  by  him- 
self, and  has  mastered  them  at  least  half  perfectly. 
Here,  then,  is  the  essence  of  the  elective  system, 
—  fixed  quantity  and  quality  of  study,  variable  topic. 
Work  and  moderate  excellence  are  matters  within 
everybody's  reach.  It  is  not  unfair  to  demand  them 
of  all.  If  a  man  cannot  show  success  somewhere,  he 
is  stamped  ipso  facto  a  worthless  fellow.  But  into  the 
specific  topic  of  work  an  element  of  individuality 
enters.  To  succeed  in  a  particular  branch  of  study 
requires  fitness,  taste,  volition,  —  incalculable  fac- 


178  THE  NEW  EDUCATION 

tors,  known  to  nobody  but  the  man  himself.  Here, 
if  anywhere,  is  the  proper  field  for  choice;  and  all 
American  colleges  are  now  substantially  agreed  in 
accepting  the  elective  principle  in  this  sense  and  ap- 
plying it  within  the  limits  here  marked  out.  It  is  an 
error  to  suppose  that  election  is  the  hasty  "craze" 
of  a  single,  college.  Every  senior  class  in  New  Eng- 
land elects  a  portion  of  its  studies.  Every  important 
New  England  college  allows  election  in  the  junior 
year.  Amherst,  Bowdoin,  Yale,  and  Harvard  allow 
it  in  the  sophomore.  Outside  of  New  England  the 
case  is  the  same.  It  is  true,  all  the  colleges  except 
Harvard  retain  a  modicum  of  prescribed  study  even 
in  the  senior  year ;  but  election  in  some  degree  is  ad- 
mitted everywhere,  and  the  tendency  is  steadily  in 
the  direction  of  a  wider  choice. 

The  truth  is,  Harvard  has  introduced  the  principle 
more  slowly  than  other  colleges.  She  was  merely 
one  of  the  earliest  to  begin.  In  1825,  on  the  recom- 
mendation of  Judge  Story,  options  were  first  allowed, 
in  modern  languages.  Twenty  years  of  experiment 
followed.  In  1846  electives  were  finally  established 
for  seniors  and  juniors;  in  1867  for  sophomores; 
in  1884  for  freshmen.  But  the  old  method  was  aban- 
doned so  slowly  that  as  late  as  1871  some  prescribed 
study  remained  for  seniors,  till  1879  for  juniors,  and 
till  1884  for  sophomores.  During  this  long  and  un- 
noticed period,  careful  comparison  was  made  be- 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  179 

tween  the  new  and  old  methods.  A  mass  of  faets 
was  accumulated,  which  subsequently  rendered  pos- 
sible an  extremely  rapid  adoption  of  the  system  by 
other  colleges.  Public  confidence  was  tested.  Com- 
paring the  new  Harvard  with  the  old,  it  is  plain 
enough  that  a  revolution  has  taken  place ;  but  it  is 
a  revolution  like  that  in  the  England  of  Victoria, 
wrought  not  by  sudden  shock,  but  quietly,  consid- 
erately, conservatively,  inevitably.  Those  who  have 
watched  the  college  have  approved;  the  time  of 
transition  has  been  a  time  of  unexampled  prosperity. 
For  the  last  fifteen  years  the  gifts  to  the  University 
have  averaged  $250,000  a  year.  The  steady  increase 
in  students  may  be  seen  at  a  glance  by  dividing  the 
last  twenty-five  years  into  five-year  periods,  and  not- 
ing the  average  number  of  undergraduates  in  each : 
1861-65,  423;  1866-70,  477;  1871-75,  657;  1876-80, 
808;  1881-85,  873. 

These  facts  are  sufficient  to  show  that  Harvard 
has  reached  her  present  great  prosperity  by  becom- 
ing the  pioneer  in  a  general  educational  movement. 
What  made  the  movement  general  was  the  dread 
of  flimsy  study.  Our  world  is  larger  than  the  one  our 
grandfathers  inhabited;  it  is  more  minutely  sub- 
divided, more  finely  related,  more  subtly  and  broadly 
known.  The  rise  of  physical  science  and  the  enlarge- 
ment of  humanistic  interests  oblige  the  college  of 
to-day  to  teach  elaborately  many  topics  which  for- 


180  THE  NEW  EDUCATION 

merly  were  not  taught  at  all.  Not  so  many  years  ago 
a  liberal  education  prepared  men  almost  exclusively 
for  the  four  professions,  —  preaching,  teaching, 
medicine,  and  law.  In  the  first  century  of  its  exist- 
ence one  half  the  graduates  of  Harvard  became 
ministers.  Of  the  graduates  of  the  last  ten  years  a 
full  third  have  entered  none  of  the  four  professions. 
With  a  narrow  field  of  knowledge,  and  with  students 
who  required  no  great  variety  of  training,  the  task 
of  a  college  was  simple.  A  single  programme  de- 
cently covered  the  needs  of  all.  But  as  the  field  of 
knowledge  widened,  and  men  began  to  notice  a 
difference  between  its  contents  and  those  of  the 
college  curriculum,  an  effort  was  made  to  enlarge 
the  latter  by  adding  subjects  from  the  former. 
Modern  languages  crept  in,  followed  by  sciences, 
political  economy,  new  departments  of  history,  lit- 
erature, art,  philosophy.  For  the  most  part,  these 
were  added  to  the  studies  already  taught.  But  the 
length  of  college  days  is  limited.  The  life  of  man 
has  not  extended  with  the  extension  of  science.  To 
multiply  subjects  was  soon  found  equivalent  to 
cheapening  knowledge.  Where  three  subjects  are 
studied  in  place  of  one,  each  is  pushed  only  one  third 
as  far.  A  crowded  curriculum  is  a  curriculum  of  su- 
perficialities, where  men  are  forever  occupied  with 
alphabets  and  multiplication -tables,  —  elementary 
matters,  containing  little  mental  nutriment.  Thor- 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  181 

ough-going  discipline,  the  acquisition  of  habits  of 
intellectual  mastery,  calls  for  acquaintance  with 
knowledge  in  its  higher  ranges,  and  there  is  no  way 
of  reaching  these  remoter  regions  during  the  brief 
season  of  college  life  except  by  dividing  the  field  and 
pressing  along  paths  where  personal  friction  is  least. 
Accordingly,  alternative  options  began  to  be  allowed, 
at  first  between  the  new  subjects  introduced,  then 
between  these  and  the  old  ones.  But  in  this  inev- 
itable admission  of  option  a  new  principle  was  in- 
troduced whose  germinal  force  could  not  afterwards 
be  stayed.  The  old  conception  had  been  that  there 
were  certain  matters  a  knowledge  of  which  consti- 
tuted a  liberal  education.  Compared  with  the  pos- 
session of  these,  the  temper  of  the  receiving  mind 
was  a  secondary  affair.  This  view  became  untenable. 
Under  the  new  conditions,  college  faculties  were 
forced  to  recognize  personal  aptitudes,  and  to  stake 
intellectual  gains  upon  them.  In  assessing  the  worth 
of  studies,  attention  was  thus  withdrawn  from  their 
subject-matter  and  transferred  to  the  response  they 
called  forth  in  the  apprehender.  Hence  arose  a  new 
ideal  of  education,  in  which  temper  of  mind  had 
preeminence  over  qucesita,  the  guidance  of  the  powers 
of  knowing  over  the  store  of  matters  known.  The 
new  education  has  accordingly  passed  through  two 
stages  of  development:  first,  in  order  to  avoid  su- 
perficiality when  knowledge  was  coming  in  like  a 


182  THE  NEW  EDUCATION 

flood,  it  was  found  necessary  to  admit  choice;  sec- 
ondly, in  the  very  necessity  of  this  admission  was 
disclosed  a  more  spiritual  ideal  of  the  relation  of 
the  mind  of  man  to  knowledge. 

And  this  new  ideal,  I  hold,  should  now  commend 
itself  not  as  a  thing  good  enough  if  collateral,  but 
as  a  principle,  organic  and  exclusive.  To  justify  its 
dominance  a  single  compendious  reason  is  sufficient : 
it  uplifts  character  as  no  other  training  can,  and 
through  influence  on  character  it  ennobles  all  meth- 
ods of  teaching  and  discipline.  We  say  to  our  stu- 
dent at  Harvard,  "Study  Greek,  German,  history, 
or  botany,  —  what  you  will;  the  one  thing  of  conse- 
quence is  that  you  should  will  to  study  something." 
The  moral  factor  is  thus  put  forward,  where  it  be- 
longs. The  will  is  honored  as  of  prime  consequence. 
Other  systems  treat  it  as  a  merely  concurrent  and 
auxiliar  force.  They  try  to  smuggle  it  into  operation 
wrapped  in  a  mass  of  matter-of-course  performances. 
It  is  the  distinctive  merit  of  the  elective  system  that 
it  strips  off  disguises,  places  the  great  facts  of  the 
moral  life  in  the  foreground,  forces  the  student  to  be 
conscious  of  what  he  is  doing,  permits  him  to  be- 
come a  partaker  in  his  own  work,  and  makes  him 
perceive  that  gains  and  losses  are  immediately  con- 
nected with  a  volitional  attitude.  When  such  a  con- 
sciousness is  aroused,  every  step  in  knowledge  be- 
comes a  step  toward  maturity.  There  is  no  sudden 


THE   NEW  EDUCATION  183 

transformation,  but  the  boy  comes  gradually  to  per- 
ceive that  in  the  determination  of  the  will  are  found 
the  promise  and  potency  of  every  form  of  life.  Many 
people  seem  to  suppose  that  at  some  epoch  in  the 
life  of  a  young  man  the  capacity  to  choose  starts  up 
of  itself,  ready-made.  It  is  not  so.  Choice,  like  other 
human  powers,  needs  practice  for  strength.  To  learn 
how  to  choose,  we  must  choose.  Keep  a  boy  from 
exercising  his  will  during  the  formative  period  from 
eighteen  to  twenty-two,  and  you  turn  him  into  the 
world  a  child  when  by  years  he  should  be  a  man. 
To  permit  choice  is  dangerous ;  but  not  to  permit  it 
is  more  dangerous ;  for  it  renders  dependency  habit- 
ual, places  outside  the  character  those  springs  of 
action  which  should  be  set  within  it,  treats  personal 
adhesion  as  of  little  account,  and  through  anxiety 
to  shield  a  young  life  from  evil  cuts  it  off  from  oppor- 
tunities of  virile  good.  Even  when  successful,  the 
directive  process  breeds  an  excellence  not  to  be  de- 
sired. Plants  and  stones  commit  no  errors.  They 
are  under  a  prescribed  system  and  follow  given 
laws.  Personal  man  is  in  continual  danger,  for  to 
self-direction  is  attached  the  prerogative  of  sin.  For 
building  up  a  moral  manhood,  the  very  errors  of 
choice  are  serviceable. 

I  am  not  describing  theoretic  advantages.  A  man- 
lier type  of  character  actually  appears  as  the  elective 
principle  extends.  The  signs  of  the  better  life  are 


184  THE  NEW  EDUCATION 

not  easy  to  communicate  to  those  who  have  not  lived 
in  the  peculiar  world  of  a  college.  A  greater  ease  in 
uprightness,  a  quicker  response  to  studious  appeal, 
a  deeper  seriousness,  still  keeping  relish  for  merri- 
ment, a  readier  amenability  to  considerations  of 
order,  an  increase  of  courtesy,  a  growing  disregard 
of  coarseness  and  vice,  a  decay  of  the  boyish  fancy 
that  it  is  girlish  to  show  enthusiasm,  —  tendencies 
in  these  directions,  hardly  perceptible  to  others, 
gladden  the  watchful  heart  of  a  teacher  and  assure 
him  that  his  work  is  not  returning  to  him  void.  Every 
company  of  young  men  has  a  notion  of  what  it  is 
"gentlemanly"  to  do.  Into  this  current  ideal  the 
most  artificial  and  incongruous  elements  enter. 
Perhaps  it  is  counted  "  good  form "  to  haze  a  fresh- 
man, to  wear  the  correctest  cut  of  trousers,  to  have  a 
big  biceps  muscle,  or  to  be  reputed  a  man  of  brains. 
Whatever  the  notion,  it  is  allegiance  to  some  such 
blind  ideal,  rather  than  the  acceptance  of  abstract 
principles  of  conduct,  which  guides  a  young  man's 
life.  To  change  ever  so  little  these  influential  ideals 
is  the  ambition  of  the  educator;  but  they  are  per- 
sistent things,  held  with  the  amazing  conservatism 
of  youth.  When  I  say  that  a  better  tone  prevails  as 
the  elective  system  takes  root,  I  mean  that  I  find  the 
word  "gentleman,"  as  it  drops  from  student  mouths, 
enlarging  and  deepening  its  meaning  from  year  to 
year,  departing  from  its  usage  as  a  term  of  outward 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION 


185 


description  and  drawing  to  itself  qualities  more  in- 
terior. Direct  evidence  on  a  matter  so  elusive  can 
hardly  be  given,  but  I  can  throw  a  few  sidelights  upon 
it.  Hazing,  window-smashing,  disturbing  a  lecture- 
room,  are  things  of  the  past.  The  office  of  proctor 
—  the  literary  policeman  of  the  olden  time  —  has 
become  a  sinecure.  Several  years  ago  the  Faculty 
awarded  Honorable  Mention  at  graduation  to  students 
who  attained  a  high  rank  in  three  or  more  courses 
of  a  single  department.  The  honor  was  not  an  exalted 
one,  but  being  well  within  the  powers  of  all  it  soon 
became  "not  quite  the  thing"  to  graduate  without 
it.  In  the  last  senior  class  91  men  out  of  191  received 
Honorable  Mention.  This  last  fact  shows  that  a  de- 
cent scholarship  has  become  reputable.  But  more  than 
this  is  true :  the  rank  which  is  reckoned  decent  scholar- 
ship is  steadily  rising.  I  would  not  overstate  the  im- 
provement. The  scale  of  marking  itself  may  have  risen 
slightly.  But  taking  the  central  scholar  of  each  class 
during  the  last  ten  years,  —  the  scholar,  that  is,  who 
stands  midway  between  the  head  and  the  foot,  —  this 
presumably  average  person  has  received  the  following 
marks,  the  maximum  being  100 :  — 


YEAR 

1 

£ 

i 

i— 

s 

00 

00 

i 

a> 

I 

& 

? 

i 

| 

% 

s 

i 

I 

Fresh. 

59 

55 

57 

56 

62 

62 

65 

87 

64 

63 

Soph. 

59 

64 

63 

65 

67 

68 

70 

69 

69 

68 

Jun. 

67 

65 

66 

67 

70 

68 

74 

75 

72 

72 

Sen. 

67 

70 

70 

73 

76 

73 

77 

75 

79 

81 

186  THE  NEW  EDUCATION 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  marks  in  this  table 
become  higher  as  the  student  approaches  the  end 
of  his  course  and  reaches  the  years  where  the  elec- 
tive principle  is  least  restricted.  Let  the  eye  pass 
from  the  left  upper  corner  of  the  table  to  the  right 
lower  corner  and  take  in  the  full  significance  of  a 
change  which  has  transformed  freshmen,  doomed  to 
prescribed  studies  and  half  of  them  ranking  below 
sixty  per  cent,  into  seniors  so  energetic  that  half  of 
them  win  four  fifths  of  a  perfect  mark  in  four  elec- 
tives.  It  is  not  only  the  poor  who  are  affected  in  this 
way.  About  half  the  men  who  appear  on  the  Rank 
List  each  year  receive  no  pecuniary  aid,  and  are 
probably  not  needy  men. 

But  it  may  be  suspected  that  high  marks  mean 
easy  studies.  The  many  different  lines  of  work  can- 
not be  equally  severe,  and  it  is  said  that  those  which 
call  for  least  exertion  will  be  sure  to  prove  the  favor- 
ites. As  this  charge  of  "soft"  courses  is  the  stock 
objection  to  the  elective  system,  I  shall  be  obliged  to 
examine  it  somewhat  minutely.  Like  most  of  the 
popular  objections,  it  rests  on  an  a  priori  assumption 
that  thus  things  must  be.  Statistics  all  run  the  other 
way.  Yet  I  am  not  surprised  that  people  believe  it. 
I  believed  it  once  myself  when  I  knew  nothing  but 
prescribed  systems.  Under  these,  it  certainly  is  true 
that  ease  is  the  main  factor  in  making  a  study  popu- 
lar. When  choice  is  permitted,  the  factor  of  interest 


THE   NEW  EDUCATION  187 

gets  freer  play,  and  exerts  an  influence  that  would 
not  be  anticipated  by  those  who  have  never  seen  it 
in  operation.  Severe  studies  are  often  highly  popular 
if  the  subject  is  attractive  and  the  teaching  clear. 
Here  is  a  list  of  the  fifteen  courses  which  in  1883-84 
(the  last  year  for  which  returns  are  complete)  con- 
tained the  largest  numbers  of  seniors  and  juniors, 
those  classes  being  at  that  time  the  only  ones  which 
had  no  prescribed  studies:  Mill's  political  economy, 
125  seniors  and  juniors ;  European  history  from  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  102;  history  of 
ancient  art,  80;  comparative  zoology,  58;  political 
and  constitutional  history  of  the  United  States,  56; 
psychology,  52;  geology,  47;  constitutional  govern- 
ment of  England  and  the  United  States,  45 ;  advanced 
geology,  with  field  work,  43;  Homer,  sixteen  books, 
40 ;  ethics,  38 ;  logic,  and  introduction  to  philosophy, 
38;  Shakespeare,  six  plays,  37;  economic  history, 
advanced  course,  36;  legal  history  of  England  to 
the  sixteenth  century,  35.  In  these  years  the  senior 
and  junior  classes  together  contained  404  men,  who 
chose  four  electives  apiece.  In  all,  therefore,  1616 
choices  were  made.  The  above  list  shows  832;  so 
that,  as  nearly  as  may  be,  one  half  of  the  total  work 
of  two  years  is  here  represented.  The  other  half  was 
devoted  to  interests  more  special,  which  were  pur- 
sued in  smaller  companies. 

Are  these  choices  unwise  ?  Are  they  not  the  studies 


188  THE  NEW  EDUCATION 

which  should  largely  occupy  a  young  man's  thoughts 
toward  the  close  of  his  college  life?  They  are  the 
ones  most  frequently  set  for  the  senior  and  junior 
years  by  colleges  which  retain  prescribed  studies. 
From  year  to  year  choices  differ  a  little.  The  courses 
at  the  lower  end  of  the  list  may  give  place  to  others 
which  do  not  appear  here.  I  print  the  list  simply  to 
indicate  the  general  character  of  the  studies  elected. 
In  it  appears  only  one  out  of  all  the  modern  languages, 
and  that,  too,  a  course  in  pure  literature  in  which 
the  marking  is  not  reputed  tender.  Another  year  a 
course  of  French  or  German  might  come  in;  but 
ordinarily  —  except  when  chosen  by  specialists  — 
the  languages,  modern  and  ancient,  are  elected  most 
largely  during  the  sophomore  year.  Following  di- 
rectly the  prescribed  linguistic  studies  of  the  fresh- 
man year,  they  are  deservedly  among  the  most  pop- 
ular, though  not  the  easiest,  courses.  In  nearly  half 
the  courses  here  shown  no  text-book  is  used,  and  the 
amount  of  reading  necessary  for  getting  an  average 
mark  is  large.  A  shelf  of  books  representing  original 
authorities  is  reserved  by  the  instructor  at  the  Library, 
and  the  pupil  is  sent  there  to  prepare  his  work. 

How,  it  will  be  asked,  are  choices  so  judicious 
secured  ?  Simply  by  making  them  deliberate.  Last 
June  studies  were  chosen  for  the  coming  year.  Dur- 
ing the  previous  month  students  were  discussing 
with  one  another  what  their  electives  should  be. 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  189 

How  this  or  that  course  is  conducted,  what  are  the 
peculiarities  of  its  teacher,  what  is  the  proportion 
in  it  between  work  given  and  gains  had,  are  matters 
which  then  interest  the  inhabitants  of  Hollis  and 
Holyoke  as  stocks  interest  Wall  Street.  Most  stu- 
dents, too,  have  some  intimacy  with  one  or  another 
member  of  the  Faculty,  to  whom  they  are  in  the 
habit  of  referring  perplexities.  This  advice  is  now 
sought,  and  often  discreetly  rejected.  The  Elective 
Pamphlet  is  for  a  time  the  best-read  book  in  college. 
The  perplexing  question  is,  What  courses  to  give  up  ? 
All  find  too  many  which  they  wish  to  take.  The 
pamphlet  of  this  year  offers  189  courses,  divided  among 
twenty  departments.  The  five  modern  languages, 
for  example,  offer,  all  told,  34  different  courses; 
Sanskrit,  Persian,  Assyrian,  Hebrew,  and  Arabic, 
14;  Greek  and  Latin,  18  each;  natural  History,  19; 
physics  and  chemistry,  18 ;  mathematics,  18 ;  history 
and  philosophy,  12  each;  the  fine  arts,  including 
music,  11;  political  economy,  7;  Roman  law,  2. 
These  numbers  will  show  the  range  of  choice;  on 
its  extent  a  great  deal  of  the  efficiency  of  the  sys- 
tem depends.1  After  the  electives  are  chosen  and 

1  But  a  great  deal  of  the  expense  also.  How  much  larger  the 
staff  of  teachers  must  be  where  everything  is  taught  to  anybody 
than  where  a  few  subjects  are  offered  to  all,  may  be  seen  by  com- 
paring the  number  of  teachers  at  Harvard  —  146,  instructing 
1586  men  —  with  those  of  Glasgow  University  in  1878  —  42, 
instructing  2018  men. 


190  THE  NEW  EDUCATION 

reported  in  writing  to  the  Dean,  the  long  vacation 
begins,  when  plans  of  study  come  under  the  scrutiny 
of  parents,  of  the  parish  minister,  or  of  the  college 
graduate  who  lives  in  the  next  street.  Until  Septem- 
ber 21,  any  elective  may  be  changed  on  notice  sent  to 
the  Dean.  During  the  first  ten  days  of  the  term,  no 
changes  are  allowed.  This  is  a  time  of  trial,  when  one 
sees  for  himself  his  chosen  studies.  Afterwards,  for 
a  short  time,  changes  are  easy,  if  the  instructors 
consent.  For  the  remainder  of  the  year  no  change 
is  possible,  unless  the  reasons  for  change  appear 
to  the  Dean  important.  Other  restrictions  on  the 
freedom  of  choice  will  readily  be  understood  with- 
out explanation.  Advanced  studies  cannot  be  taken 
till  preliminary  ones  are  passed.  Notices  are  pub- 
lished by  the  French  and  German  departments  that 
students  who  elect  those  languages  must  be  placed 
where  proficiency  fits  them  to  go.  Courses  espe- 
cially technical  in  character  are  marked  with  a  star 
in  the  Elective  Pamphlet,  and  cannot  be  chosen  till 
the  instructor  is  consulted. 

By  means  like  these  the  Faculty  try  to  prevent  the 
wasting  of  time  over  unprofitable  studies.  Of  course 
they  do  not  succeed.  I  should  roughly  guess  that  a 
quarter,  possibly  a  third,  of  the  choices  made  might 
be  improved.  This  estimate  is  based  on  the  answers 
I  have  received  to  a  question  put  to  some  fifty 
recent  graduates:  "In  the  light  of  your  present 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  191 

experience,  how  many  of  your  electives  would  you 
change?"  I  seldom  find  a  man  who  would  not 
change  some ;  still  more  rarely  one  who  would  change 
one  half.  As  I  look  back  on  my  own  college  days, 
spent  chiefly  on  prescribed  studies,  I  see  that  to  make 
these  serve  my  needs  more  than  half  should  have  been 
different.  There  was  Anglo-Saxon,  for  example, 
which  was  required  of  all,  no  English  literature  being 
permitted.  A  course  in  advanced  chemical  physics, 
serviceable  no  doubt  to  some  of  my  classmates,  came 
upon  me  prematurely,  and  stirred  so  intense  an  aver- 
sion to  physical  study  that  subsequent  years  were 
troubled  to  overcome  it.  One  meagre  meal  of  phi- 
losophy was  perhaps  as  much  as  most  of  us  seniors 
could  digest,  but  I  went  away  hungry  for  more.  I 
loved  Greek,  but  for  two  years  I  was  subject  to  the 
instructions  of  a  certain  professor,  now  dead,  who 
was  one  of  the  most  learned  scholars  and  unprofit- 
able teachers  I  ever  knew.  Of  the  studies  which 
brought  me  benefit,  few  did  so  in  any  vigorous  fashion. 
Every  reader  will  parallel  my  experience  from  his  own. 
Prescribed  studies  may  be  ill-judged  or  ill-adapted, 
ill-timed  or  ill-taught,  but  none  the  less  inexorably 
they  fall  on  just  and  unjust.  The  wastes  of  choice 
chiefly  affect  the  shiftless  and  the  dull,  men  who  can- 
not be  harmed  much  by  being  wasted.  The  wastes  of 
prescription  ravage  the  energetic,  the  clear-sighted, 
the  original,  —  the  very  classes  who  stand  in  great- 


192  THE  NEW  EDUCATION 

est  need  of  protection.  What  I  would  assert,  there- 
fore, is  not  that  in  the  elective  system  we  have  dis- 
covered the  secret  of  stopping  educational  waste. 
That  will  go  on  as  long  as  men  need  teaching.  I 
simply  hold  that  the  monstrous  and  peculiarly  perni- 
cious wastes  of  the  old  system  are  now  being  re- 
duced to  a  minimum.  Select  your  cloth  discreetly, 
order  the  best  tailor  in  town  to  make  it  up,  and  you 
will  still  require  patience  for  many  misfits ;  but  they 
will  be  fewer,  at  any  rate,  than  when  garments  are 
served  out  to  you  and  the  whole  regiment  by  the 
government  quartermaster. 

Nobody  who  has  taught  both  elective  and  pre- 
scribed studies  need  be  told  how  the  instruction  in 
the  two  cases  differs.  With  perfunctory  students,  a 
teacher  is  concerned  with  devices  for  forcing  his 
pupils  onward.  Teaching  becomes  a  secondary  af- 
fair; the  time  for  it  is  exhausted  in  questioning 
possible  shirks.  Information  must  be  elicited,  not 
imparted.  The  text-book,  with  its  fixed  lessons,  is  a 
thing  of  consequence.  It  is  the  teacher's  business  to 
watch  his  pupils,  to  see  that  they  carry  off  the  requi- 
site knowledge;  their  business,  then,  it  soon  becomes 
to  try  to  escape  without  it.  Between  teacher  and 
scholar  there  goes  on  an  ignoble  game  of  matching 
wits,  in  which  the  teacher  is  smart  if  he  can  catch 
a  boy,  and  the  boy  is  smart  if  he  can  know  nothing 
without  being  found  out.  Because  of  this  supposed 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  193 

antagonism  of  interests  American  higher  education 
seldom  escapes  an  air  of  unreality.  We  seem  to  be 
at  the  opera  bouffe.  A  boy  appears  at  the  learning- 
shop,  purchases  his  parcel  of  knowledge,  and  then 
tries  to  toss  it  under  the  counter  and  dodge  out  of 
the  door  before  the  shopman  can  be  quick  enough 
to  make  him  carry  off  the  goods.  Nothing  can  cure 
such  folly  except  insistence  that  pupil's  neglect  is  not 
teacher's  injury.  The  elective  system  points  out  to 
a  man  that  he  has  something  at  stake  in  a  study,  and 
so  trains  him  to  look  upon  time  squandered  as  a 
personal  loss.  Where  this  consciousness  can  be  pre- 
sumed, a  higher  style  of  teaching  becomes  possible. 
Methods  spring  up  unlike  formal  lectures,  unlike 
humdrum  recitations.  The  student  acquires  —  what 
he  will  need  in  after  life  —  the  power  to  look  up  a 
single  subject  in  many  books.  Theses  are  written; 
discussions  held;  in  higher  courses,  problems  of  re- 
search supersede  defined  tasks.  During  1860-61, 
fifty-six  per  cent  of  the  Harvard  undergraduates  con- 
sulted the  college  library;  during  1883-84,  eighty-five 
per  cent. 

In  a  similar  way  governmental  problems  change 
their  character.  Formerly,  it  was  assumed  that  a 
student  who  followed  his  own  wishes  would  be  in- 
disposed to  attend  recitations.  Penalties  were  ac- 
cordingly established  to  compel  him  to  come.  At 
present,  there  is  not  one  of  his  twelve  recitations  a 


194  THE  NEW  EDUCATION 

week  which  a  Harvard  student  might  not  "cut." 
Of  course  I  do  not  mean  that  unlimited  absence  is 
allowed.  Any  one  who  did  not  appear  for  a  week 
would  be  asked  what  he  was  doing.  But  for  several 
years  there  has  been  no  mechanical  regulation,  —  so 
much  absence,  so  much  penalty.  I  had  the  curiosity 
to  see  how  largely,  under  this  system  of  trust,  the 
last  senior  class  had  cared  to  stay  away.  I  counted  all 
absences,  excused  and  unexcused.  Some  men  had 
been  sick  for  considerable  periods;  some  had  been 
worthless,  and  had  shamelessly  abused  their  free- 
dom. Reckoning  in  all  misdeeds  and  all  misfortunes, 
I  found  that  on  the  average  each  man  had  been  ab- 
sent a  little  less  than  twice  a  week.1  The  test  of  high 
character  is  the  amount  of  freedom  it  will  absorb 
without  going  to  pieces.  The  elective  system  en- 
larges the  capacity  to  absorb  freedom  undisturbed. 
But  it  would  be  unfair  to  imply  that  the  new  spirit 
is  awakened  in  students  alone.  Professors  are  them- 
selves instructed.  The  obstacles  to  their  proper 
work,  those  severest  of  all  obstacles  which  come  from 

1  Or  sixteen  per  cent  of  his  recitations.  Readers  may  like  to 
compare  this  result  with  the  number  of  absences  elsewhere.  At 
a  prominent  New  England  college,  one  of  the  best  of  those  which 
require  attendance,  a  student  is  excused  from  ten  per  cent  of  his 
exercises.  But  this  amount  does  not  cover  absences  of  necessity, 
—  absences  caused  by  sickness,  by  needs  of  family,  and  by  the 
many  other  perfectly  legitimate  hindrances  to  attendance.  The 
percentage  given  for  the  Harvard  seniors  includes  all  absences 
whatsoever. 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  195 

defective  sympathy,  are  cleared  away.  A  teacher 
draws  near  his  class,  and  learns  what  he  can  do  for 
it.  Long  ago  it  was  said  that  among  the  Gentiles 
—  people  spiritually  rude  —  great  ones  exercised 
authority,  while  in  a  state  of  righteousness  this  should 
not  be  so;  there  the  leader  would  estimate  his  im- 
portance by  his  serviceability.  It  was  a  teacher  who 
spoke,  and  he  spoke  to  teachers.  To-day  teachers' 
dangers  lie  in  the  same  direction.  Always  dealing 
with  inferiors,  isolated  from  criticism,  by  nature  not 
less  sluggish  than  others,  through  the  honorable 
passion  which  they  feel  for  their  subject  disposed  to 
set  the  private  investigation  of  it  above  its  exposition, 
teachers  are  continually  tempted  to  think  of  a  class 
as  if  it  existed  for  their  sakes  rather  than  they  for 
its.  Fasten  pupils  to  the  benches,  and  nothing  coun- 
teracts this  temptation  except  that  individual  con- 
science which  in  all  of  us  is  a  faculty  that  will  well 
bear  strengthening.  It  may  be  just  to  condemn  the 
dull,  the  intolerant,  the  self-absorbed  teacher;  but 
why  not  condemn  also  the  system  which  perpetuates 
him  ?  Nobody  likes  to  be  inefficient ;  slackness  is 
largely  a  fault  of  inadvertence.  That  system  is  good 
which  makes  inadvertence  difficult  and  opens  the 
way  for  a  teacher  to  discover  whether  his  instruc- 
tions hit.  Give  students  choice,  and  a  professor 
gets  the  power  to  see  himself  as  others  see  him. 
How  this  is  accomplished  appears  by  examining 


196  THE  NEW  EDUCATION 

three  possible  cases.  Suppose,  in  the  first  place,  I 
become  negligent  this  year,  am  busy  with  private 
affairs,  and  so  content  myself  with  imparting  nothing, 
with  calling  off  questions  from  a  text-book,  or  with 
reading  my  old  lectures ;  I  shall  find  out  my  mistake 
plainly  enough  next  June,  when  fewer*  men  than 
usual  elect  my  courses.  Suppose,  secondly,  I  give 
my  class  important  matter,  but  put  it  in  such  a  form 
that  young  minds  cannot  readily  assimilate  it;  the 
same  effect  follows,  only  in  this  case  I  shall  probably 
attract  a  small  company  of  the  hardier  spirits,  — 
in  some  subjects  the  very  material  a  teacher  desires. 
Or  suppose,  lastly,  I  seek  popularity,  aim  at  enter- 
tainment, and  give  my  pupils  little  work  to  do ;  my 
elective  becomes  a  kind  of  sink,  into  which  are 
drained  off  the  intellectual  dregs  of  the  college.  Other 
teachers  will  get  rid  of  their  loafers ;  I  shall  take  them 
in.  But  I  am  not  likely  to  retain  them.  A  teacher 
is  known  by  the  company  he  keeps.  In  a  vigorous 
community  a  "soft"  elective  brings  no  honor  to  its 
founder.  I  shall  be  apt  to  introduce  a  little  stiffen- 
ing into  my  courses  each  year,  till  the  appearance  of 
the  proper  grade  of  student  tells  me  I  am  proved  to 
have  a  value.  There  is,  therefore,  in  the  new  method 
a  self-regulating  adjustment.  Teacher  and  taught 
are  put  on  their  good  behavior.  A  spirit  of  faithful- 
ness is  infused  into  both,  and  by  that  very  fact  the 
friendliest  relation  is  established  between  them. 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  197 

I  have  left  myself  little  room  to  explain  why  the 
elective  system  should  be  begun  as  early  as  the  fresh- 
man year,  and  surely  not  much  room  is  needed.  A 
system  proved  to  exert  a  happy  influence  over  char- 
acter, and  thence  over  manners  and  scholarly  dis- 
position, is*  exactly  the  maturing  agency  needed  by 
the  freshman  of  eighteen.  It  is  the  better  suited  to 
him  because  the  early  years  of  college  life  are  its  least 
valuable  portion,  which  can  bear,  therefore,  most 
economically  the  disciplining  losses  sure  to  come 
when  a  student  is  learning  to  choose.  More  than  this, 
the  change  from  school  methods  to  character  methods 
is  too  grave  a  one  to  be  passed  over  as  an  incident  in 
the  transition  from  year  to  year.  A  change  of  resi- 
dence should  mark  it.  It  should  stand  at  the  entrance 
to  a  new  career.  Parents  should  be  warned,  and  those 
who  have  brought  up  their  sons  to  habits  of  luxu- 
rious ease  should  be  made  fully  aware  that  a  college 
which  appeals  to  character  has  no  place  for  children 
of  theirs. 

Every  mode  of  training  has  its  exclusions.  I 
prefer  the  one  which  brings  least  profit  to  our  dan- 
gerous classes,  —  the  indolent  rich.  Leslie  Stephen 
has  said  that  the  only  argument  rascals  can  under- 
stand is  the  hangman.  The  only  inducement  to 
study,  for  boys  of  loose  early  life,  is  compulsion. 
But  for  the  plain  democratic  many,  who  have  sound 
seed  in  themselves,  who  have  known  duty  early, 


198  THE  NEW  EDUCATION 

and  who  have  found  in  worthy  things  their  law  and 
impulse,  the  elective  system,  even  during  the  fresh- 
man year,  gives  an  opportunity  for  moral  and  men- 
tal expansion  such  as  no  compulsory  system  can 
afford. 

Perhaps  in  closing  I  ought  to  caution  the  reader 
that  he  has  been  listening  to  a  description  of  ten- 
dencies merely,  and  not  of  completed  attainment. 
In  no  college  is  the  New  Education  fully  embodied. 
It  is  an  ideal,  toward  which  all  are  moving,  and  a 
powerfully  influential  ideal.  In  explaining  it,  for  the 
sake  of  simplicity  I  have  confined  myself  to  tracing 
the  working  of  its  central  principle,  and  I  have  drawn 
my  illustrations  from  that  Harvard  life  with  which 
I  am  most  familiar.  But  simplicity  distorts ;  the  sha- 
dows disappear.  I  am  afraid  I  may  seem  to  have 
hinted  that  the  Harvard  training  already  comes  pretty 
near  perfection.  It  does  not  —  let  me  say  so  dis- 
tinctly. We  have  much  to  learn.  Side  by  side  with 
nobler  tendencies  to  which  I  have  directed  attention, 
disheartening  things  appear.  The  examination  paper 
still  attacks  learning  on  its  intellectual  side,  the 
marking  system  on  its  moral.  All  I  have  sought  to 
establish  is  this:  there  is  a  method  which  we  and 
many  other  colleges  in  different  degrees  have  adopted, 
which  is  demonstrably  a  sound  method.  Its  sound- 
ness should  by  this  time  be  generally  acknowledged, 


THE  NEW  EDUCATION  199 

and  criticism  should  now  turn  to  the  important  work 
of  bettering  its  details  of  operation.  May  what  I 
have  written  encourage  such  criticism  and  help  to 
make  it  wise,  penetrative,  and  friendly. 


IX 


ERRONEOUS  LIMITATIONS  OF  THE  ELECTIVE 
SYSTEM 

IN  a  paper  published  in  the  Andover  Review  a 
year  ago,  I  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  a  new 
principle  is  at  work  in  American  education.  That 
principle,  briefly  stated,  is  this :  the  student  now  con- 
sciously shares  in  his  own  upbuilding.  His  studies  are 
knitted  closely  to  his  personal  life.  Under  this  influ- 
ence a  new  species  of  power  is  developed.  Scholar- 
ship broadens  and  deepens,  boyishness  diminishes, 
teacher  and  pupil  meet  less  artificially.  The  college, 
as  an  institution,  wins  fresh  life.  Public  confidence 
awakens;  pupils,  benefactions,  flow  in.  Over  what  I 
wrote  an  eager  controversy  has  arisen,  a  controversy 
which  must  have  proved  instructive  to  those  who 
need  instruction  most.  In  the  last  resort  questions 
of  education  are  decided  by  educators,  as  those  of 
sanitation  by  sanitary  engineers;  but  in  both  cases 
the  decision  has  reference  to  public  needs,  and  people 
require  to  be  instructed  in  the  working  of  appliances 
which  are  designed  for  their  comfort.  There  is  dan- 
ger that  such  instruction  may  not  be  given.  Pro- 
fessional men  become  absorbed  in  their  art  and 


THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM  201 

content  themselves  with  reticence,  leaving  the  public 
ignorant  of  the  devices  by  which  its  health  is  to  be 
preserved.   A  great  opportunity,  therefore,  comes  to 
the  common  householder  when  these  professional  men 
fall  foul  of  one  another.  In  pressing  arguments  home 
they  frequently  take  to  ordinary  speech,  and  any- 
body who  then  lends  an  ear  learns  of  the  mysteries. 
The  present  discussion,  I  am  sure,  has  brought  this 
informatory  gain  to  every  parent  who  reads  the 
Andover  Review  and    has   a   studious    boy.    The 
gain  will  have  been  greater  because  of  the  candor 
and  courtesy  with  which  the  attacking  party  has 
delivered  its  assault.  The  contest  has  been  earnest. 
Its  issues   have   been   rightly  judged  momentous. 
For  good  or  for  ill,  the  choice  youth  of  the  land  are 
to  be  shaped  by  whatever  educational  policy  finally 
wins.   Yet,  so  far  as  I  recall,  no  unkind  word  has 
slipped  from  the  pen  of  one  of  my  stout  opponents ; 
no  disparagement  of  man  or  college  has  mixed  with 
the  energetic  advocacy  of  principle;  the  discussion 
has  set  in  well  toward  things.  I  cannot  call  this 
remarkable.   Of  course  it  is  not  easy  to  be  fair  and 
strong  at  once.  Sweetness  and  light  are  often  parted. 
Yet  we  rightly  expect  the  scholar's  life  to  civilize  him 
who  pursues  it,  and  we  anticipate  from  books  a  re- 
finement of  the  spirit  and  the  manners  as  well  as  the 
understanding.    My  opponeijts  have  been  scholars, 
and  have  spoken  as  scholars  speak.  It  is  a  pleasure 


202         ERRONEOUS  LIMITATIONS 

to  linger  in  their  kindly  contentious  company.  So 
I  gladly  accept  the  invitation  of  the  editors  of  the 
Review  to  sum  up  our  discussion  and  to  add  some 
explanatory  last  words. 

The  papers  which  have  appeared  fall  into  two 
easily  distinguishable  classes,  the  descriptive  and  the 
critical.  To  the  former  I  devote  but  a  brief  space, 
so  much  more  direct  is  the  bearing  of  the  latter  on 
the  main  topic  of  debate  —  the  question,  namely, 
what  course  the  higher  education  can  and  what  it 
cannot  now  take.  Yet  the  descriptive  papers  perform 
a  service  and  deserve  a  welcome  word.  Suspecting 
that  I  was  showing  off  Harvard  rather  favorably, 
professors  planted  elsewhere  have  attempted  to  make 
an  equally  favorable  exhibit  of  their  own  colleges. 
In  my  manifesto  they  have  seen  "  a  coveted  oppor- 
tunity to  bring  forward  corresponding  statistics  which 
have  not  been  formed  under  the  Harvard  method." 
Perhaps  this  was  to  mistake  my  aim  a  little.  I  did 
intend  to  advance  my  college  in  public  esteem;  she 
deserves  that  of  me  in  everything  I  write.  But  pri- 
marily I  thought  of  myself  as  the  expounder  of  an 
important  policy,  which  happens  to  have  been  longer 
perceived  and  more  elaborately  studied  at  Harvard 
than  elsewhere.  I  hope  I  did  not  imply  that  Harvard, 
having  this  excellence,  has  all  others.  She  has  many 
weaknesses,  which  should  not  be  shielded  from  dis- 
cerning discussion.  Nor  did  I  intend  to  commit 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        203 

the  injustice  to  Harvard  —  an  injustice  as  gross  as  it 
is  frequent  —  of  treating  her  as  a  mere  embodiment 
of  the  elective  system.  Harvard  is  a  complex  and 
august  institution,  possessed  of  all  the  attractions 
which  can  be  lent  by  age,  tradition,  learning,  con- 
tinually renewed  resources,  fortunate  situation,  wide- 
spread clientage,  enthusiastic  loyalty,  and  forceful 
guidance.  She  is  the  intellectual  mother  of  us  all, 
honored  certainly  by  me,  and  I  believe  by  thousands 
of  others,  for  a  multiplicity  of  subtle  influences 
which  stretch  far  outside  her  special  modes  of  in- 
struction. But  for  the  last  half-century  Harvard  has 
been  developing  a  new  and  important  policy  of 
education.  Coincident  with  this  development  she 
has  attained  enormous  popular  esteem  and  internal 
power.  The  value  and  limits  of  this  policy,  the 
sources  of  this  esteem  and  power,  I  wish  everybody, 
colleges  and  populace,  to  scrutinize.  To  make  these 
things  understood  is  to  help  the  higher  education 
everywhere. 

In  undertaking  this  quasi  philosophical  task,  I 
count  it  a  piece  of  good  fortune  to  have  provoked  so 
many  lucid  accounts  of  what  other  colleges  are  doing. 
The  more  of  these  the  better.  The  public  cannot  be 
too  persistently  reminded  of  the  distinctive  merits 
of  this  college  and  of  that.  Let  each  be  as  zealous  as 
possible;  gains  made  by  one  are  gains  for  all.  De- 
preciatory rivalry  between  colleges  is  as  silly  as  it  is 


204         ERRONEOUS  LIMITATIONS 

when  religious  sects  quarrel  in  the  midst  of  a  perish- 
ing world.  Probably  such  rivalries  have  their  rise 
in  the  dull  supposition  that  a  fixed  constituency  of 
pupils  exists  somewhere,  which  if  not  turned  toward 
one  college  may  be  drawn  to  another.  As  the  old 
political  economists  tell  of  a  "  wages  fund,"  fixed  and 
constant  in  each  community,  so  college  governors 
are  apt  to  imagine  a  public  pupil-hoard,  not  sus- 
ceptible of  much  increase  or  diminution,  which  may 
by  inadvertence  fall  into  other  hands  than  their  own. 
In  reality  each  college  creates  its  constituency.  Its 
students  come,  in  the  main,  from  the  inert  mass  of 
the  uncollegiate  public.  Only  one  in  eight  among 
Harvard  students  is  a  son  of  a  Harvard  graduate; 
and  probably  the  small  colleges  beget  afresh  an  even 
larger  percentage  of  their  students.  On  this  account 
the  small  colleges  have  been  a  power  in  the  land. 
To  disparage  them  shall  never  be  my  office.  In  a 
larger  degree  than  the  great  universities  they  spread 
the  college  idea  among  people  who  would  not  other- 
wise possess  it.  The  boy  who  lives  within  fifty  miles 
of  one  of  them  reflects  whether  he  will  or  will  not 
have  a  college  training.  Were  there  no  college  in 
the  neighborhood,  he  might  never  consider  the  mat- 
ter at  all.  It  is  natural  enough  for  undergraduates 
to  decry  every  college  except  their  own ;  but  those  who 
love  education  generously,  and  who  seek  to  spread 
it  far  and  wide,  cannot  afford  the  luxury  of  envy. 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        205 

One  common  danger  besetting  us  all  should  bind 
us  together.  In  the  allurements  of  commerce  boys 
may  forget  that  college  is  calling.  They  do  forget  it. 
According  to  my  computations  the  number  of  per- 
sons in  the  New  England  colleges  to-day  is  about 
the  same  as  the  number  in  the  insane  asylums;  but 
little  more  than  the  number  of  idiots.  Probably 
this  number  is  not  increasing  in  proportion  to  pop- 
ulation. Professor  Newton,  of  Oberlin,  finds  that 
the  increase  of  students  during  the  ten  years  between 
1870  and  1880,  in  twenty  of  our  oldest  leading  col- 
leges, was  less  than  three  and  a  half  per  cent,  the 
population  of  the  United  States  increasing  during  the 
same  period  twenty-three  per  cent.  In  view  of  facts 
like  these,  careful  study  of  the  line  along  which  col- 
lege growth  is  still  possible  becomes  a  necessity. 
It  will  benefit  all  colleges  alike.  No  one  engaged  in 
it  has  a  side  to  maintain.  We  are  all  alike  seekers. 
Whatever  instructive  experience  any  college  can 
contribute  to  the  common  study,  and  whatever  pupils 
she  may  thereby  gain,  will  be  matter  for  general  re- 
joicing. 

To  such  a  study  the  second,  or  critical,  class  of 
papers  furnishes  important  stimulus ;  for  these  have 
not  confined  themselves  to  describing  institutions: 
they  have  gone  on  to  discuss  the  value  and  limits 
of  the  principle  which  actuates  the  new  education 
everywhere.  In  many  respects  their  writers  and  I 


206    •     ERRONEOUS  LIMITATIONS 

are  in  full  accord.  In  moral  aim  we  always  are,  and 
generally  too  in  our  estimate  of  the  present  status. 
We  all  confess  that  the  conditions  of  college  educa- 
tion have  changed,  that  the  field  of  knowledge  has 
enlarged,  that  a  liberal  training  nowadays  must  fit 
men  for  more  than  the  four  professions  of  preaching, 
teaching,  medicine,  and  law.  We  agree  that  the  pre- 
scribed systems  of  the  past  are  outgrown.  We  do  not 
want  them.  We  doubt  whether  they  were  well  suited 
to  their  own  time ;  we  are  sure  they  will  never  fit 
ours.  Readjustments  of  curricula,  we  all  declare, 
must  be  undertaken  if  the  higher  education  is  to 
retain  its  hold  on  our  people.  Further  still,  we  agree 
in  the  direction  of  this  readjustment.  My  critics, 
no  less  than  I,  believe  that  a  widely  extended  scope 
must  be  given  to  individual  choice.  With  the  possible 
exception  of  Professor  Denison,  about  whose  opinion 
I  am  uncertain,  everybody  who  has  taken  part  in  the 
controversy  recognizes  the  elective  principle  as  a 
beneficial  one  and  maintains  that  in  some  form  or 
other  it  has  come  to  stay.  People  generally  are  not 
aware  what  a  consensus  of  opinion  on  this  point  late 
years  have  brought  about.  To  rid  ourselves  once  for 
all  of  further  controversy  let  us  weigh  well  the  words 
of  my  opponents. 

Mr.  Brearley  begins  his  criticism  addressed  to  the 
New  York  Harvard  Club  thus:  "We  premise  that 
every  one  accepts  the  elective  principle.  Some  system 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        207 

based  on  that  principle  must  be  established.  No  one 
wants  the  old  required  systems  back,  or  any  new  re- 
quired system."  Professor  Howison  says:  "An  elec- 
tive system,  in  its  proper  place,  and  under  its  due 
conditions,  is  demonstrably  sound."  Professor  Ladd 
does  not  express  himself  very  fully  on  this  point 
in  the  Andover  Review,  but  his  opinions  may  be 
learned  from  the  New  Englander  for  January, 
1885.  When,  in  1884,  Yale  College  reformed  its 
curriculum  and  introduced  elective  studies,  it  be- 
came desirable  to  instruct  the  graduates  about  the 
reasons  for  a  step  which  had  been  long  resisted. 
After  a  brief  trial  of  the  new  system,  Professor  Ladd 
published  his  impressions  of  it.  I  strongly  commend 
his  candid  paper  to  the  attention  of  those  who  still 
believe  the  old  methods  the  safer.  He  asserts  that 
"  a  perfect  and  final  course  of  college  study  is,  if  not  an 
unattainable  ideal,  at  present  an  impossible  achieve- 
ment." The  considerations  which  were  "  the  definite 
and  almost  compulsory  reasons  for  instituting  a 
comprehensive  change"  he  groups  under  the  follow- 
ing heads :  (1)  the  need  of  modern  languages ;  (2)  the 
crowding  of  studies  in  the  senior  year;  (3)  the  hetero- 
geneous and  planless  character  of  the  total  course; 
(4)  the  need  of  making  allowance  for  the  tastes,  the 
contemplated  pursuits,  and  the  aptitudes  of  the  in- 
dividual student.  Substantially,  these  are  the  evils 
of  prescription  which  I  pointed  out ;  only,  in  my  view, 


208         ERRONEOUS  LIMITATIONS 

they  are  evils  not  confined  to  a  single  year.  Stating 
his  observation  of  the  results  of  election,  Professor 
Ladd  says:  "Increased  willingness  in  study,  and 
even  a  new  and  marked  enthusiasm  on  the  part  of  a 
considerable  number  of  students,  is  another  effect 
of  the  new  course  already  realized.  The  entire  body 
of  students  in  the  upper  classes  is  more  attentive, 
regular,  interested,  and  even  eager,  than  ever  be- 
fore." "More  intimate  and  effective  relations  are 
secured  in  many  cases  between  teachers  and  pupils." 
These  convictions  in  regard  to  the  efficiency  which 
the  elective  principle  lends  to  education  are  not  con- 
fined to  my  critics  and  myself.  Let  me  cite  testimony 
from  representatives  of  other  colleges.  The  last 
Amherst  Catalogue  records  (page  24)  that  "excel- 
lent results  have  appeared  from  this  [the  elective] 
method.  The  special  wants  of  the  student  are  thus 
met,  his  zest  and  progress  in  his  work  are  increased, 
and  his  association  with  his  teachers  becomes  thus 
more  close  and  intimate."  President  Robinson  says, 
in  his  annual  report  for  1885  to  the  Corporation 
of  Brown  University:  "There  are  advantages  in  a 
carefully  guarded  system  of  optional  studies  not 
otherwise  obtainable.  The  saving  of  time  in  prepar- 
ing for  a  special  calling  in  life  is  something,  and  the 
cumulative  zeal  in  given  lines  of  study,  where  a  grati- 
fied and  growing  taste  is  ever  beckoning  onward, 
is  still  more.  But  above  all,  some  provision  for 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        209 

choice  among  ever-multiplying  courses  of  study  has 
become  a  necessity."  In  addressing  the  American 
Institute  of  Instruction  at  Bar  Harbor,  July  7,  1886, 
Professor  A.  S.  Hardy,  of  Dartmouth,  is  reported  as 
saying:  "Every  educator  now  recognizes  the  fact 
that  individual  characteristics  are  always  sufficiently 
marked  to  demand  his  earliest  attention;  and,  fur- 
thermore, that  there  is  a  stage  in  the  process  of 
education  where  the  choice,  the  responsibility,  and 
the  freedom  of  the  individual  should  have  a  wide 
scope."  President  Adams,  in  his  inaugural  address 
at  Cornell  in  1885,  asserted  that  "  there  are  varieties 
of  gifts,  call  them,  if  you  will,  fundamental  differences, 
that  make  it  impossible  to  train  successfully  all  of 
a  group  of  boys  to  the  same  standard.  These  differ- 
ences are  partly  matters  of  sheer  ability,  and  partly 
matters  of  taste ;  for  if  a  boy  has  so  great  an  aver- 
sion to  a  given  study  that  he  can  never  be  brought 
to  apply  himself  to  it  with  some  measure  of  fond- 
ness, he  is  as  sure  not  to  succeed  in  it  as  he  would 
be  if  he  were  lacking  the  requisite  mental  capa- 
city." 

In  determining,  then,  what  the  new  education 
may  wisely  he,  let  this  be  considered  settled  :  it  must 
contain  a  large  element  of  election.  That  is  the 
opinion  of  these  unbiased  judges.  They  find  per- 
sonal choice  necessary  for  promoting  a  wider  range 
of  topics  in  the  college,  a  greater  zeal  on  the  part  of 


210         ERRONEOUS  LIMITATIONS 

the  student,  and  more  suitable  relations  between 
teacher  and  pupil.  With  this  judgment  I,  of  course, 
heartily  agree,  though  I  should  make  more  promi- 
nent the  moral  reason  of  the  facts.  I  should  insist 
that  a  right  character  and  temper  in  the  receiving 
mind  is  always  a  prerequisite  of  worthy  study.1 
But  I  misrepresent  these  gentlemen  if  I  allow  their 
testimony  to  stop  here.  They  maintain  that  the 
elective  principle  as  thus  far  carried  out,  though  valu- 
able, is  still  meagre  and  one-sided.  They  do  not 
think  it  will  be  found  self-sufficing  and  capable  of 
guarding  its  own  working.  They  see  that  it  has 
dangers  peculiar  to  itself,  and  believe  that  to  escape 

1  These  conditions  of  intellectual  nourishment  were  long  ago 
recognized  in  other,  less  formal,  departments  of  mental  training. 
In  his  essays  on  Books  and  Reading  President  Porter  wrote  in 
1871:  "The  person  who  asks.  What  shall  I  read?  or,  With  what 
shall  I  begin  ?  may  have  read  for  years  in  a  mechanical  routine, 
and  with  a  listless  spirit;  with  scarcely  an  independent  thought, 
with  no  plans  of  self-improvement,  and  few  aspirations  for  self- 
culture.  To  all  these  classes  the  advice  is  full  of  meaning :  '  Read 
what  will  satisfy  your  wants  and  appease  your  desires,  and  you 
will  comply  with  the  first  condition  to  reading  with  interest  and 
profit.'  Hunger  and  thirst  are  better  than  manifold  appliances 
and  directions,  in  respect  to  other  than  the  bodily  wants,  towards 
a  good  appetite  and  a  healthy  digestion.  If  a  man  has  any  self- 
knowledge  or  any  power  of  self-direction,  he  is  surely  competent 
to  ask  himself  what  is  the  subject  or  subjects  in  respect  to  which 
he  stands  most  in  need  of  knowledge  or  excitement  from  books. 
If  he  can  answer  this  question,  he  has  gone  very  far  towards 
answering  the  question,  'What  book  or  books  can  I  read  with 
satisfaction  and  profit?'"  (Chap,  iv,  p.  39.) 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        211 

them  it  will  require  to  be  restricted  and  furnished 
with  supplemental  influences.  I  believe  so  too. 
Choice  is  important,  but  it  is  also  important  that  one 
should  choose  well.  The  individual  is  sacred,  but 
only  so  far  as  he  is  capable  of  recognizing  the  sacred- 
ness  of  laws  which  he  has  had  no  part  in  making. 
Unrestricted  arbitrary  choice  is  indistinguishable 
from  chaos ;  and  undoubtedly  every  method  of  train- 
ing which  avoids  mechanism  and  includes  choice  as 
a  factor  leaves  a  door  open  in  the  direction  of  chaos. 
Infinite  Wisdom  left  that  door  open  when  man  was 
created.  To  dangers  from  this  source  I  am  fully 
alive.  I  totally  dissent  from  those  advocates  of  the 
elective  system  who  would  identify  it  with  a  laissez- 
faire  policy.  The  cry  that  we  must  let  nature  take 
care  of  itself  is  a  familiar  one  in  trade,  in  art,  in 
medicine,  in  social  relations,  in  the  religious  life, 
in  education;  but  in  the  long  run  it  always  proves 
inadequate.  Man  is  a  personal  spirit,  a  director,  a 
being  fitted  to  compare  and  to  organize  forces,  not  to 
take  them  as  they  rise,  like  a  creature  of  nature.  The 
future  will  certainly  not  tolerate  an  education  less 
organic  than  that  of  the  past;  but  just  as  certainly 
will  it  demand  that  the  organic  tie  shall  be  a  living 
one,  —  one  whose  bond  may  assist  those  whom  it 
restricts  to  become  spontaneous,  forcible,  and  diverse. 
If  I  am  offered  only  the  alternative  of  absolutism  or 
laissez-faire,  I  choose  laissez-faire.  Out  of  chaotic 


212         ERRONEOUS  LIMITATIONS 

nature  beautiful  forms  do  continually  come  forth. 
But  absolutism  kills  in  the  cradle.  It  cannot  tolerate 
a  life  that  is  imperfect,  and  so  it  stifles  what  it  should 
nourish. 

Up  to  this  point  my  critics  and  I  have  walked  hand 
in  hand.  Henceforth  we  part  company.  I  shall  not 
follow  out  all  our  little  divergencies.  My  object  from 
the  first  has  been  to  trace  the  line  along  which  edu- 
cation may  now  proceed.  It  must,  it  seems,  be  a 
line  including  election;  but  election  limited  how? 
To  disentangle  an  answer  to  this  vexed  question,  I 
pass  by  the  many  points  in  which  my  critics  have 
shown  that  I  am  foolish,  and  the  few  others  in  which 
I  might  show  them  so,  and  turn  to  the  fundamental 
issue  between  us,  our  judgment  of  what  the  sup- 
plemental influences  are  which  will  render  personal 
initiative  safe.  Personal  initiative  is  assured.  The 
authoritative  utterances  I  have  just  quoted  show 
that  it  can  never  again  be  expelled  from  American 
colleges.  But  what  checks  are  compatible  with  it? 
Accepting  choice,  what  treatment  will  render  it 
continually  wiser  ?  Here  differences  of  judgment  be- 
gin to  appear,  and  here  I  had  hoped  to  receive  light 
from  my  critics.  The  question  is  one  where  coopera- 
tive experience  is  essential.  But  those  who  have 
written  against  me  seem  hardly  to  have  realized  its 
importance.  They  generally  confine  themselves  to 
showing  how  bad  my  plans  are,  and  merely  hint  at 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        213 

better  ones  which  they  themselves  might  offer. 
But  what  are  these  plans?  Wise  ways  of  training 
boys  are  of  more  consequence  than  Harvard  mis- 
deeds. We  want  to  hear  of  a  constructive  policy 
which  can  take  a  young  man  of  nineteen  and  so  train 
him  in  self-direction  that  four  years  later  he  may 
venture  out  alone  into  a  perplexing,  and  for  the  most 
part  hostile,  world.  The  thing  to  be  done  is  to  teach 
boys  how  to  manage  themselves.  Admit  that  the 
Harvard  discipline  does  not  do  this  perfectly  at 
present;  what  will  do  it  better?  Here  we  are  at  an 
educational  crisis.  We  stand  with  this  aim  of  self- 
guidance  in  our  hands.  What  are  we  going  to  do 
with  it  ?  It  is  as  dangerous  as  a  bomb.  But  we  can- 
not drop  it.  It  is  too  late  to  objurgate.  It  is  better 
to  think  calmly  what  possible  modes  of  treatment  are 
still  open.  When  railroads  were  found  dangerous, 
men  did  not  take  to  stage-coaches  again;  they  only 
studied  railroading  the  more. 

Now  in  the  mass  of  negative  criticism  which  the 
last  year  has  produced  I  detect  three  positive  sug- 
gestions, three  ways  in  which  it  is  thought  limitation 
may  be  usefully  applied  to  supplement  the  inevitable 
personal  initiative.  These  modes  of  limitation,  it 
is  true,  are  not  worked  out  with  any  fulness  of  prac- 
tical detail,  as  if  their  advocates  were  convinced  that 
the  future  was  with  them.  Rather  they  are  thrown 
out  as  hints  of  what  might  be  desirable  if  facts  and 


214         ERRONEOUS  LIMITATIONS 

the  public  would  not  interfere.  But  as  they  seem 
to  be  the  only  conceivable  modes  of  restricting  the 
elective  principle  by  any  species  of  outside  check- 
age,  I  propose  to  devote  the  remainder  of  this  paper 
to  an  examination  of  their  feasibility.  In  a  subse- 
quent paper  I  shall  indicate  what  sort  of  corrective 
appears  to  me  more  likely  to  prove  congruous  and 
lasting. 

I.  The  first  suggestion  is  that  the  elective  prin- 
ciple should  be  limited  from  beneath.  Universities 
and  schools  are  to  advance  their  grade,  so  that  finally 
the  universities  will  secure  three  or  four  years  of 
purely  elective  study,  while  the  schools,  in  addition 
to  their  present  labors,  will  take  charge  of  the  studies 
formerly  prescribed  by  the  college.  The  schools, 
in  short,  are  to  become  German  gymnasia,  and  the 
colleges  to  delay  becoming  universities  until  this 
regeneration  of  the  schools  is  accomplished.1  A  cer- 

1  In  deference  to  certain  writers  I  employ  their  favorite  term 
"university"  in  contrast  with  the  term  "college,"  yet  I  must  own 
I  do  not  know  what  it  means.  An  old  signification  is  clear.  A 
university  is  an  assemblage  of  schools,  as  our  government  is  an 
assemblage  of  states.  In  England,  different  corporations,  giving 
substantially  similar  instruction,  are  brought  together  by  a  com- 
mon body  which  confers  the  degrees.  In  this  country,  a  group 
of  professional  schools  —  law,  medicine,  theology,  and  science  — 
are  associated  through  one  governing  body  with  the  college  proper, 
that  is,  with  the  candidates  for  the  B.  A.  degree.  In  this  useful 
sense,  Tufts  and  Bowdoin  are  universities;  Amherst  and  Brown, 
colleges.  But  Germany,  which  has  thrown  so  many  parts  of  the 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        215 

tain  "  sum  of  topics  "  is  said  to  be  essential  to  the 
culture  of  the  man  and  the  citizen.  In  the  interest  of 
church  and  state,  young  minds  must  be  provided  with 
certain  "fact  forms,"  with  a  "common  conscious- 
ness," a  "common  basis  of  humanism."  Important 
as  personal  election  is,  to  allow  it  to  take  place  before 
this  common  basis  is  laid  is  "  to  strike  a  blow  at  the 
historic  substance  of  civilization."  How  extensive 
this  common  consciousness  is  to  be  may  be  learned 
from  Professor  Howison's  remark  that  "languages, 
classical  and  modern;  mathematics,  in  all  its  gen- 
eral conceptions,  thoroughly  apprehended;  physics, 
acquired  in  a  similar  manner,  and  the  other  natural 
sciences,  though  with  much  less  of  detail;  history 
and  politics;  literature,  especially  of  the  mother 
tongue,  but,  indispensably,  the  masterpieces  in  other 
languages,  particularly  the  classic ;  philosophy,  in  the 
thorough  elements  of  psychology,  logic,  metaphysics, 
and  ethics,  each  historically  treated,  and  economics, 
in  the  history  of  elementary  principles,  must  all  enter 
into  any  education  that  can  claim  to  be  liberal." 

world  into  confusion,  has  introduced  exaltation  and  mystery  here. 
A  university  now  appears  to  mean  "  a  college  as  good  as  it  can  be," 
a  stimulating  conception,  but  not  a  finished  or  precise  one.  I 
would  not  disparage  it.  It  is  a  term  of  aspiration,  good  to  con- 
jure with.  When  we  want  to  elevate  men's  ideas,  or  to  obtain  their 
dollars,  it  is  well  to  talk  about  creating  a  true  university :  just  as  it 
is  wise  to  bid  the  forward-reaching  boy  to  become  "  a  true  gentle- 


216         ERRONEOUS  LIMITATIONS 

The  practical  objections  to  this  monarchical 
scheme  are  many.  I  call  attention  to  three  only. 

In  the  first  place,  the  argument  on  which  it  is 
based  proves  too  much.  If  we  suppose  a  common 
consciousness  to  be  a  matter  of  such  importance, 
and  that  it  cannot  be  secured  except  by  sameness 
of  studies,  then  that  state  is  jcriminally  careless  which 
allows  ninety-nine  hundredths  of  its  members  to 
get  an  individual  consciousness  by  the  simple  ex- 
pedient of  never  entering  college.  The  theory  seems 
to  demand  that  every  male  —  and  why  not  female  ? 
—  between  sixteen  and  twenty  be  indoctrinated  in 
"the  essential  subject-matters,"  without  regard  to 
what  he  or  she  may  personally  need  to  know  or  do. 
This  is  the  plan  of  religious  teaching  adopted  by  the 
Roman  Church,  which  enforces  its  "fact  forms"  of 
doctrine  on  all  alike;  without  securing,  however,  by 
this  means,  according  to  the  judgment  of  the  out- 
side world,  any  special  freshness  of  religious  life. 
I  do  not  believe  the  results  would  be  better  in  the 
higher  secular  culture,  and  I  should  be  sorry  to  see 
Roman  methods  applied  there ;  but  if  they  are  to  be 
applied,  let  them  fall  impartially  on  all  members  of 
the  community.  To  put  into  swaddling  clothes  the 
man  who  is  wise  enough  to  seek  an  education,  and 
to  leave  his  duller  brother  to  kick  about  as  he  pleases, 
seems  a  little  arbitrary. 

But  secondly,  there  is  no  more  prospect  of  per- 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        217 

suading  our  high  schools  to  accept  the  prescribed 
subjects  of  the  colleges  than  there  is  of  persuading 
our  government  to  transform  itself  into  the  German. 
Already  the  high  schools  and  the  colleges  are  unhap- 
pily drawing  apart.  The  only  hope  of  their  nearer 
approach  is  in  the  remission  by  the  colleges  of  some 
of  the  more  burdensome  subjects  at  present  exacted. 
Paid  for  by  common  taxation,  these  schools  are 
called  on  to  equip  the  common  man  for  his  daily 
struggle,  That  they  will  one  day  devote  themselves 
to  laying  the  foundations  of  an  ideally  best  education 
for  men  of  leisure  is  grotesquely  improbable.  Al- 
though Harvard  draws  rather  more  than  one-third 
of  her  students  from  states  outside  New  England, 
the  whole  number  of  students  who  have  come  to  her 
from  the  high  schools  of  these  states,  during  a  period 
of  the  last  ten  years,  is  but  sixty-six.  Fitting  for 
college  is  becoming  an  alarmingly  technical  matter, 
and  is  falling  largely  into  the  hands  of  private  tutors 
and  academies. 

It  may  be  said,  however,  thirdly,  that  it  is  just 
these  academies  which  might  advantageously  take 
the  present  freshmen  and  sophomore  studies.  They 
would  thus  become  the  exclusive  avenues  to  the  uni- 
versity of  the  future,  leaving  it  free  to  do  its  own 
proper  work  with  elective  studies.  Considering  the 
great  expense  which  this  lengthening  of  the  curricu- 
lum of  the  academy  implies,  it  is  plain  that  the  num- 


218         ERRONEOUS  LIMITATIONS 

her  of  schools  capable  of  fitting  boys  in  this  way 
would  always  be  small.  These  few  academies,  with 
their  monopoly  of  learned  training,  would  lose  their 
present  character  and  be  erected  into  little  colleges, 
—  colleges  of  a  second  grade.  That  any  such  thing 
is  likely  to  occur,  I  do  not  believe;  but  if  it  were, 
would  it  aid  the  higher  education  and  promote  its 
wide  dispersion  ?  Precisely  the  contrary.  Instead  of 
going  to  the  university  from  the  academies,  boys 
would  content  themselves  with  the  tolerable  educa- 
tion already  received.  For  the  most  part  they  would 
decline  to  go  farther.  It  is  useless  to  say  that  this 
does  not  happen  in  Germany,  where  the  numbers 
resorting  to  the  university  are  so  large  as  to  have 
become  the  subject  of  complaint;  for  the  German 
government,  controlling  as  it  does  all  access  to  the 
professions,  is  able  to  force  through  the  gymnasia 
and  through  special  courses  at  the  university  a  body 
of  young  men  who  would  otherwise  be  seeking  their 
fortunes  elsewhere.  Whether  such  control  would 
be  desirable  in  this  country,  I  will  not  consider. 
Some  questions  are  not  feasible  even  for  discussion. 
But  it  is  to  English  experience  we  must  look  to  see 
what  our  case  would  be.  The  great  public  schools  of 
England  —  Eton,  Rugby,  Harrow,  Winchester,  West- 
minster, Cheltenham  —  are  of  no  higher  order  than 
under  the  proposed  plan  Andover  and  Exeter  would 
become.  From  these  two  academies  nearly  ninety- 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        219 

five  per  cent  of  the  senior  classes  now  enter  some 
college.  But  of  the  young  men  graduating  from  the 
English  schools  named,  so  far  as  I  can  ascertain, 
less  than  fifty  per  cent  go  to  the  university.  With  the 
greater  pressure  toward  commercial  life  in  this  coun- 
try, the  number  would  certainly  be  less  than  in  Eng- 
land. To  build  up  colleges  of  a  second  grade,  and 
to  permit  none  but  those  who  have  passed  them  to 
enter  colleges  of  the  first,  is  to  cut  off  the  higher  edu- 
cation from  nearly  all  those  who  do  not  belong  to 
the  privileged  classes ;  it  is  to  make  the  "  common 
consciousness"  less  common,  and  to  turn  it,  even 
more  effectually  than  at  present,  into  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  clique.  He  who  must  make  a  living  for 
himself  or  for  others  cannot  afford  to  reach  his  pro- 
fession late.  The  age  of  entering  college  is  already 
too  high.  With  improved  methods  of  teaching  I 
hope  it  may  be  somewhat  reduced .  At  any  rate,  every 
study  now  added  to  the  high  schools  or  academies 
is  a  fresh  barrier  between  education  and  the  people. 
II.  If,  then,  by  prescribing  a  large  amount  of 
study  outside  the  university  the  elective  principle  is 
not  likely  to  be  successfully  limited,  is  it  not  probable 
that  within  the  college  itself  the  two  counter  princi- 
ples of  election  and  prescription,  mutually  limiting, 
mutually  supporting,  will  always  be  retained  ?  This 
is  the  second  suggestion ;  to  bring  studies  of  choice 
and  studies  commanded  into  juxtaposition.  The 


220         ERRONEOUS  LIMITATIONS 

backbone  of  the  college  is  to  be  kept  prescribed,  the 
fleshy  parts  to  be  made  elective.  By  a  special  modi- 
fication of  the  plan,  the  later  years  are  turned  largely, 
perhaps  wholly,  toward  election,  and  a  line  is  drawn 
at  the  junior,  or  even  the  sophomore  year,  below 
which  elective  studies  are  forbidden  to  penetrate. 
Is  not  this  the  plan  that  will  finally  be  judged  safest  ? 
It  certainly  is  the  safest  for  a  certain  number  of  years. 
Before  it  can  securely  reach  anything  else,  every  col- 
lege must  pass  through  this  intermediate  state.  After 
half  a  century  of  testing  election  Harvard  still  re- 
tains some  prescribed  studies.  The  Harvard  juniors 
chose  for  nineteen  years  before  the  sophomores,  and 
the  sophomores  seventeen  years  before  the  fresh- 
men. In  introducing  electives  a  sober  pace  is  com- 
mendable. A  university  is  charged  with  the  greatest 
of  public  trusts.  The  intelligence  of  the  commu- 
nity is,  to  a  large  extent,  in  its  keeping.  It  is  bound 
to  keep  away  from  risky  experiments,  to  disregard 
shifting  popular  fancies,  and  to  be  as  conservative 
as  clearness  of  sight  will  permit.  I  do  not  plead, 
therefore,  that  Harvard  and  Yale  should  abolish  all 
prescription  the  coming  year.  They  certainly  should 
not.  In  my  opinion  most  colleges  are  moving  too 
fast  in  the  elective  direction  already.  I  merely  plead 
that  we  must  see  where  we  are  going.  As  public 
guides,  we  must  forecast  the  track  of  the  future  if 
we  would  avoid  stumbling  into  paths  which  lead  no- 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        221 


where.  That  is  all  I  am  attempting  here.  I  want  to 
ascertain  whether  the  dual  system  of  limitation  is  a 
stable  system,  one  in  which  we  can  put  our  trust,  or 
whether  it  is  a  temporary  convenience,  likely  to  slip 
away  a  little  year  after  year.  What  does  history  say  ? 
Let  us  examine  the  facts  of  the  past.  The  following 
table  shows  at  the  left  the  fifteen  New  England  col- 
leges. In  the  next  three  parallel  columns  is  printed 
the  percentage  of  elective  studies  which  existed  in 
these  colleges  in  1875-76;  in  the  last  three,  the  per- 
centage which  exists  to-day.  To  render  the  com- 
parison more  exact,  I  print  the  sophomore,  junior, 
and  senior  years  separately,  reserving  the  problem 
of  the  freshman  year  for  later  discussion. 


1875-76 

1885-86 

Soph. 

.Iiiu. 

Sen. 

Soph. 

Jim. 

Sen. 

Amherst        .     .    . 
Bates    .         ... 
Boston           .     .     . 
Bowdoin       .    .    . 
Brown            .     . 
Colby  

.04 
0 
0 
0 
0 
0 

.20 
0 
0 
0 
.04 
0 

.08 
0 
0 
0 
.04 
0 

.20 
0 
.35 
.15 
.14 
0 

.75 
0 
.66 
.25 
.37 
.08 

.75 
0 
.82 
.25 
.55 
.16 

Dartmouth    .     .     . 
Harvard    .... 
Middlebury  .     .     . 
Trinity      .... 
Tufts    

0 
.50 
0 
0 
0 

0 
.78 
0 
0 
.17 

0 
1.00 
0 
0 
.17 

0 
1.00 
0 
0 
0 

.41 
1.00 
0 
.25 

.28 

.36 
1.00 
0 
.25 
.43 

Vermont   .... 
Wesleyan      .     .     . 
Williams  .... 
Yale     

0 
0 
0 
0 

0 
.47 
0 
0 

0 
.47 
0 
0 

0 
.16 
0 
.13 

0 

.47 
0 
.53 

0 
.64 
.37 
.80 

222         ERRONEOUS  LIMITATIONS 

This  table  yields  four  conclusions :  (1)  A  rapid  and 
fateful  revolution  is  going  on  in  the  higher  education 
of  New  England.  We  do  not  exaggerate  the  change 
when  we  speak  of  an  old  education  and  a  new.  (2) 
The  spread  of  it  is  in  tolerable  proportion  to  the 
wealth  of  the  college  concerned.  The  new  modes  are 
expensive.  It  is  not  disapproval  which  is  holding  the 
colleges  back;  it  is  inability  to  meet  the  cost.  I  am 
sorry  to  point  out  this  fact.  To  my  mind  one  of 
the  gravest  perplexities  of  the  new  education  is  the 
query,  What  are  the  small  colleges  to  do  ?  They  have 
a  usefulness  altogether  peculiar;  yet  from  the  life- 
giving  modern  methods  of  training  they  are  of  neces- 
sity largely  cut  off.  (3)  The  colleges  which  long  ago 
foresaw  their  coming  necessities  have  been  able  to 
proceed  more  cautiously  than  those  which  acknow- 
ledged them  late.  (4)  The  movement  is  one  of  steady 
advance.  There  is  no  going  back.  It  must  be  re- 
membered, too,  that  the  stablest  colleges  have  been 
proceeding  with  these  changes  many  more  years  than 
the  period  shown  in  the  table.  Are  we,  then,  pre- 
pared to  dismiss  prejudice  from  our  minds  and  to 
recognize  what  steadiness  of  advance  means?  In 
other  matters  when  a  general  tendency  in  a  given 
direction  is  discovered,  extending  over  a  long  series  of 
years,  visible  in  individuals  widely  unlike,  and  pre- 
senting no  solitary  case  of  backward  turning,  we  are 
apt  to  conclude  that  there  is  a  force  in  the  movement 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        223 

which  will  carry  it  still  further  onward.  We  are  not 
disposed  to  seize  on  some  point  in  its  path  and  to 
count  that  an  ultimate  holding-ground.  This,  I  say, 
would  be  a  natural  conclusion  unless  we  could  de- 
tect in  the  movement  tendencies  at  work  in  an  oppo- 
site direction.  Are  there  any  such  tendencies  here? 
I  cannot  find  them.  Prescription  invariably  loses; 
election  invariably  gains. 

But  in  order  to  make  a  rational  prediction  about 
the  future  we  must  know  more  than  the  bare  facts  of 
the  past ;  we  need  to  know  why  these  particular  facts 
have  arisen.  What  are  the  reasons  that  whenever 
elective  and  prescribed  studies  are  mixed,  an  extrusive 
force  regularly  appears  in  the  elective  ?  The  reasons 
are  not  far  to  seek.  Probably  every  professor  in  New 
England  understands  them.  The  two  systems  are 
so  incongruous  that  each  brings  out  the  vices  rather 
than  the  virtues  of  its  incompatible  brother.  Pre- 
scribed studies,  side  by  side  with  elective,  appear  a 
bondage;  elective,  side  by  side  with  prescribed,  an 
indulgence.  So  long  as  all  studies  are  prescribed,  one 
may  be  set  above  another  in  the  mind  of  the  pupil 
on  grounds  of  intrinsic  worth;  let  certain  studies 
express  the  pupil's  wishes,  and  almost  certainly  the 
remainder,  valuable  as  they  may  be  in  themselves, 
will  express  his  disesteem.  It  is  useless  to  say  this 
should  not  be  so.  It  always  is.  The  zeal  of  work, 
the  freshness  of  interest,  which  now  appear  in  the 


224         ERRONEOUS  LIMITATIONS 

chosen  studies,  are  deducted  from  those  which  are 
forced.  On  the  latter  as  little  labor  as  possible  is 
expended.  They  become  perfunctory  and  mechani- 
cal, and  soon  restive  pupils  and  dissatisfied  teachers 
call  for  fresh  extension  of  energizing  choice.  This  is 
why  the  younger  officers  in  all  the  colleges  are  eager 
to  give  increased  scope  to  the  elective  studies.  They 
cannot  any  longer  get  first-rate  work  done  in  the  pre- 
scribed. Alarmed  by  the  dangers  of  the  new  principle, 
as  they  often  and  justly  are,  they  find  that  the  pre- 
sence of  prescription,  instead  of  diminishing  the  dan- 
gers, adds  another  and  a  peculiarly  enfeebling  one 
to  those  which  existed  before.  So  certain  are  these 
dangers,  and  so  inevitable  the  expanding  power  of 
the  elective  principle,  that  it  is  questionable  whether 
it  would  not  be  wise  for  a  college  to  refuse  to  have 
anything  to  do  with  elective  studies  so  soon  as  it 
knows  itself  too  weak  to  allow  them  to  spread. 

For  where  will  the  spreading  stop  ?  It  cannot  stop 
till  the  causes  of  it  stop.  The  table  just  given  shows 
no  likelihood  of  its  stopping  at  all,  and  a  little  re- 
flection will  show  that  each  enlargement  increases 
the  reasons  for  another  enlargement  still.  If  pre- 
scribed studies  are  ever  exceptional,  ineffective, 
and  obnoxious,  they  certainly  become  more  so  as 
they  diminish  in  number.  A  college  which  retains 
one  of  them  is  in  a  condition  of  unstable  equilibrium. 
But  is  this  true  of  the  freshman  year?  Will  not  a 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        225 

special  class  of  considerations  keep  prescription  en- 
during and  influential  there,  long  after  it  has  lost 
its  usefulness  in  the  later  years  ?  A  boy  of  nineteen 
comes  from  home  about  as  untrained  in  will  as  in 
intelligence.  Will  it  not  always  be  thought  best  to 
give  him  a  year  in  which  to  acquaint  himself  with  his 
surroundings  and  to  learn  what  studies  he  may  after- 
wards profitably  select?  Possibly  it  will.  I  incline 
to  think  not.  The  case  of  the  freshman  year  is  un- 
doubtedly peculiar.  Taking  a  large  body  of  colleges, 
we  have  direct  evidence  that  during  their  last  three 
years  the  elective  principle  steadily  wins  and  never 
loses.  We  have  but  a  trifle  of  such  evidence  as  re- 
gards the  freshman  year.  There  the  struggle  of  the 
two  forces  has  barely  begun.  It  has  begun  at  Har- 
vard, and  the  usual  result  is  already  foreshadowed. 
The  prescribed  studies  are  disparaged  studies;  they 
are  not  worked  at  the  best  advantage.  Still,  I  do 
not  like  to  prophesy  on  evidence  so  narrow.  I  will 
merely  say  I  see  no  reason  to  suppose  that  colleges 
will  meet  with  permanent  success  in  mingling  incom- 
patible kinds  of  study  in  their  freshman  year.  But  I 
can  only  surmise.  Let  any  college  that  inclines  to 
try  the  experiment  do  so. 

It  may  be  thought,  however,  a  wiser  course  to 
keep  the  freshman  year  untouched  by  choice.  A 
solid  year  of  prescription  is  thus  secured  as  a  limita- 
tion on  the  election  that  is  to  follow.  This  plan  is  so 


226         ERRONEOUS  LIMITATIONS 

often  advised,  especially  by  persons  unacquainted 
with  the  practical  working  of  colleges,  that  it  re- 
quires a  brief  examination  by  itself. 

Let  us  suppose  the  revolution  which  we  have 
traced  in  the  sophomore,  junior,  and  senior  years  to 
have  reached  its  natural  terminus ;  let  us  suppose  that 
in  these  years  all  studies  have  become  elective,  while 
the  freshman  year  remains  completely  prescribed; 
the  college  will  then  fall  into  two  parts,  a  preparatory 
department  and  a  university  department.  In  these 
two  departments  the  character  of  the  instruction,  the 
methods  of  study,  the  consciousness  of  the  students, 
will  be  altogether  dissimilar.  The  freshmen  will  not 
be  taken  by  upper  classmen  as  companions;  they 
will  be  looked  down  upon  as  children.  Hazing  will 
find  abundant  excuse.  An  abrupt  line  will  be  drawn, 
on  whose  farther  side  freedom  will  lie,  on  whose 
hither  side,  bondage.  The  sophomore,  a  being  who 
at  best  has  his  peculiarities,  will  find  his  sense  of 
self-sufficiency  doubled.  Whatever  badly-bred  boy 
parents  incline  to  send  to  college  will  seem  to  them 
safe  enough  for  a  year,  and  they  will  suppose  that 
during  this  period  he  will  learn  how  to  behave.  Of 
course  he  will  learn  nothing  of  the  sort.  Manly  dis- 
cipline has  not  yet  begun.  At  the  end  of  the  freshman 
year  a  boy  will  be  only  so  much  less  a  boy  as  increase 
of  age  may  make  him.  Through  being  forced  to 
study  mathematics  this  year  there  comes  no  sustain- 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        227 

ing  influence  fitted  to  fortify  the  judgment  when  one 
is  called  the  next  year  to  choose  between  Greek  and 
German.  On  the  contrary,  the  change  from  school 
methods  to  maturing  methods  is  rendered  as  dan- 
gerous as  possible  by  allowing  it  to  take  place  quite 
nakedly,  by  itself,  unsupported  by  other  changes, 
and  at  the  mere  dictation  of  the  almanac.  An  eman- 
cipation so  bare  and  sudden  is  not  usual  elsewhere. 
For  boys  who  do  not  go  to  college,  departure  from 
home  is  commonly  recognized  as  a  fit  occasion  for 
putting  on  that  dangerous  garment,  the  toga  viri- 
lis.  Entrance  to  the  university  constitutes  a  similar 
epoch,  when  change  of  residence,  new  companions, 
altered  conditions  of  living,  a  realization  that  the  old 
supports  are  gone,  and  the  presumption  with  which 
every  one  now  meets  the  youth  that  he  is  to  be 
treated  as  a  man  among  men,  become  helpful  influ- 
ences cooperating  to  ease  the  hard  and  inevitable 
transition  from  parental  control  to  personal  self- 
direction.  A  safer  time  for  beginning  individual  re- 
sponsibility cannot  be  found.  At  any  rate,  whether 
my  diagnosis  of  reasons  is  correct  or  not,  the  fact 
is  clear,  —  self-respecting  colleges  do  not  tolerate 
preparatory  departments.  They  do  not  work  well. 
They  are  an  element  of  weakness  in  the  institution 
which  harbors  them.  Even  where  at  first  they  are 
judged  necessary,  so  soon  as  the  college  grows  strong 
they  are  dropped.  When  we  attempt  to  plan  an 


228         ERRONEOUS  LIMITATIONS 

education  for  times  to  come,  we  must  bear  in  mind 
established  facts.  Turn  the  freshman  year  into  a 
preparatory  department,  fill  it  with  studies  antithetic 
in  aim,  method,  and  spirit  to  those  of  later  years, 
and  something  is  established  which  no  sober  college 
ever  permitted  to  remain  long  within  its  borders. 
This  is  the  teaching  of  the  past  without  an  exception. 
To  suppose  the  future  will  be  different  is  but  the 
blind  hope  of  a  timid  transitionalism. 

III.  The  third  suggestion  for  restricting  election 
is  the  group  system.  This  deserves  a  more  respect- 
ful treatment  than  the  methods  hitherto  discussed, 
for  it  is  something  more  than  a  suggestion :  it  is  a 
system,  a  constructive  plan  of  education,  thought 
out  in  all  its  parts,  and  directed  toward  an  intended 
end.  The  definition  which  I  have  elsewhere  offered 
of  the  elective  system,  that  it  demands  a  fixed  quan- 
tity and  quality  of  study  with  variable  topic,  would  be 
applicable  also  to  the  group  system.  Accordingly  it 
belongs  to  the  new  education  rather  than  to  the  old. 
No  less  than  the  elective  system  it  is  opposed  to  the 
methods  of  restriction  thus  far  described.  These 
latter  methods  attempt  to  limit  election  by  the  bal- 
last of  an  alien  principle  lodged  beneath  it  or  by  its 
side.  They  put  a  weight  of  prescription  into  the  pre- 
paratory schools,  into  the  early  college  years,  or  into 
parallel  lines  of  study  extending  throughout  the 
college  course.  The  source  of  their  practical  trouble 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        229 

lies  here :  the  two  principles,  election  and  prescrip- 
tion, are  nowhere  united ;  they  remain  sundered  and 
at  war,  unserviceable  for  each  other's  defects.  The 
group  system  intertwines  them.  It  permits  choice  in 
everything,  but  at  the  same  time  prescribes  every- 
thing. This  it  effects  by  enlarging  the  unit  of  choice 
and  prescribing  its  constituent  factors.  A  group 
or  block  of  studies  is  offered  for  choice,  not  a  single 
study.  All  the  studies  of  a  group  must  be  taken  if 
any  are,  the  "  if  "  being  the  only  matter  left  for  the 
student  to  settle.  The  group  may  include  all  the 
studies  open  to  a  student  at  the  university.  One  de- 
cision may  determine  his  entire  course.  Or,  as  in  the 
somewhat  analogous  arrangement  of  the  English 
universities,  one  group  may  be  selected  at  the  be- 
ginning and  another  in  the  middle  of  the  university 
life.  The  group  itself  is  sometimes  contrived  so  as 
to  allow  an  individual  variation;  different  students 
read  different  books;  a  special  phase  of  philosophy, 
history,  or  science  receives  prominence.  But  the 
boundaries  of  the  group  cannot  be  crossed.  All  the 
studies  selected  by  the  college  authorities  to  form  a 
single  group  must  be  taken ;  no  others  can  be. 

In  this  method  of  limiting  choice  there  is  much 
that  is  attractive.  I  feel  that  attraction  strongly. 
Under  the  exceptional  conditions  which  exist  at  the 
Johns  Hopkins  University,  a  group  system  has  done 
excellent  work.  Like  all  the  rest  of  the  world,  I 


230         ERRONEOUS  LIMITATIONS 

honor  that  work  and  admire  its  wise  directors.  But 
group  systems  seem  to  me  to  possess  features  too 
objectionable  to  permit  them  to  become  the  preva- 
lent type  of  the  future,  and  I  do  not  see  how  these 
features  can  be  removed  without  abandoning  what 
is  distinctive,  and  changing  the  whole  plan  into  the 
elective  system,  pure  and  simple.  The  objectionable 
features  connect  themselves  with  the  size  of  the  unit 
of  choice,  with  difficulties  in  the  construction  of  the 
groups,  and  with  the  attempt  to  enforce  specializa- 
tion. But  these  are  enigmatic  phrases;  let  me  ex- 
plain them. 

Obviously ,  for  the  young,  foresight  is  a  hard  matter. 
While  disciplining  them  in  the  intricate  art  of  look- 
ing ahead,  I  should  think  it  wise  to  furnish  frequently 
a  means  of  repairing  errors.  Penalties  for  bad  choices 
should  not  be  too  severe.  Now  plainly  the  larger  the 
unit  of  choice,  the  graver  the  consequences  of  errone- 
ous judgment.  The  group  system  takes  a  large  unit, 
a  body  of  studies ;  the  simple  elective  system,  a  small 
unit,  the  single  study.  Errors  of  choice  are  conse- 
quently less  reparable  under  the  group  system  than 
under  pure  election.  To  meet  this  difficulty  the 
college  course  at  Baltimore  has  been  reduced  from 
four  years  to  three;  but  even  so,  a  student  who  se- 
lects a  group  for  which  he  finds  himself  unfit  cannot 
bring  himself  into  proper  adjustment  without  the 
loss  of  a  year.  If  he  does  not  discover  his  unfitness 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        231 

until  the  second  year  has  begun,  he  loses  two  years 
Under  the  elective  system,  the  largest  possible  pen- 
alty for  a  single  mistake  is  the  loss  of  a  single  study, 
one  quarter  of  a  year's  work.  This  necessary  differ- 
ence in  ease  of  reparability  appears  to  me  to  mark  an 
inferiority  in  group  systems,  considered  as  methods 
of  educating  choice.  To  the  public  it  may  seem  other- 
wise. I  am  often  astonished  to  find  people  approving 
irreparable  choices  and  condemning  reparable  ones. 
That  youths  between  nineteen  and  twenty-three 
should  select  studies  for  themselves  shocks  many 
people  who  look  kindly  enough  on  marriages  con- 
tracted during  those  years.  Boys  still  unbearded  have 
a  large  share  in  deciding  whether  they  will  go  to 
college,  to  a  scientific  school,  to  a  store,  to  sea,  or 
to  a  cattle-ranch.  Their  lives  are  staked  on  the  wis- 
dom of  the  step  taken.  Yet  the  American  mode  of 
meeting  these  family  problems  seems  to  our  com- 
munity, on  the  whole,  safer  than  the  English  way 
of  regulating  them  by  tradition  and  dictation.  The 
choice  with  heavy  stakes  of  the  boy  who  does  not 
go  to  college  is  frequently  set  off  favorably  against 
the  choices  with  light  stakes  of  the  boy  who  goes. 
Perhaps  a  similarly  lenient  judgment  will  in  the  long 
run  be  passed  on  the  great  stakes  involved  in  group 
systems.  I  doubt  it.  I  think  it  will  ultimately  be 
judged  less  dangerous  and  more  maturing  to  grant 
a  young  man,  in  his  passage  through  a  period 


232         ERRONEOUS  LIMITATIONS 

of  moral   discipline,  frequent   opportunities  of  re- 
pair. 

Again,  the  practical  difficulties  of  deciding  what 
groups  shall  be  formed  are  enormous.  What  studies 
shall  enter  into  each  ?  How  many  groups  shall  there 
be?  If  but  one,  we  have  the  old-fashioned  college 
with  no  election.  If  two,  we  have  the  plan  which 
Yale  has  just  abandoned,  a  fixed  undergraduate 
department  maintained  in  parallel  vigor  with  a 
fixed  scientific  school.  But  in  conceding  the  claims 
of  variety  even  to  this  degree,  we  have  treated  the 
fundamental  differences  between  man  and  man  as 
worthy,  not  reprehensible;  and  can  we  say  that  the 
proper  differences  are  only  two?  Must  we  not  ac- 
knowledge a  world  at  least  as  complex  as  that  they 
have  in  Baltimore,  where  there  appear  to  be  seven 
reputable  species  of  mankind :  "  Those  who  wish 
a  good  classical  training;  those  who  look  toward  a 
course  in  medicine;  those  who  prefer  mathematical 
studies  with  reference  to  engineering,  astronomy,  and 
teaching;  those  who  wish  an  education  in  scientific 
studies,  not  having  chosen  a  specialty;  those  who 
expect  to  pursue  a  course  in  theology ;  those  who  pro- 
pose to  study  law ;  those  who  wish  a  literary  training 
not  rigidly  classical."  Here  a  classification  of  hu- 
man wishes  is  attempted,  but  one  suspects  that  there 
are  legitimate  wishes  which  lie  outside  the  scheme. 
It  does  not,  for  example,  at  once  appear  why  a  pro- 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        233 

spective  chemist  should  be  debarred  from  all  regu- 
lar study  of  mathematics.  It  seems  hard  that  a  youth 
of  literary  tastes  should  be  cut  off  from  Greek  at 
entrance  unless  he  will  agree  to  take  five  exercises 
in  it  each  week  throughout  his  college  course.  One 
does  not  feel  quite  easy  in  allowing  nobody  but  a  law- 
yer or  a  devotee  of  modern  languages  to  read  a  page 
of  English  or  American  history.  The  Johns  Hopkins 
programme  is  the  most  ingenious  and  the  most  flex- 
ible contrivance  for  working  a  group  system  that  I 
have  ever  seen.  For  this  reason  I  mention  it  as  the 
most  favorable  type  of  all.  Considering  its  purposes, 
I  do  not  believe  it  can  be  much  improved.  As  ap- 
plied to  its  little  band  of  students,  116,  it  certainly 
works  few  hardships.  Yet  all  the  exclusions  I  have 
named,  and  many  more  besides,  appear  in  it.  I  in- 
stance these  simply  to  show  what  barriers  to  know- 
ledge the  best  group  system  erects.  Remove  these, 
and  others  quite  as  great  are  introduced.  Try  to 
avoid  them  by  allowing  the  student  of  one  group  to 
take  certain  studies  in  another,  and  the  sole  line 
which  parts  the  group  system  from  the  elective  is 
abandoned.  In  practice,  it  usually  is  abandoned. 
Confronted  with  the  exigencies  of  operation,  the  so- 
called  group  system  turns  into  an  elective  system, 
with  highly  specialized  lines  of  study  strongly  recom- 
mended. With  this  more  genial  working  I  have  no- 
thing now  to  do.  My  point  is  this :  a  system  of  hard 


and  fast  groups  presents  difficulties  of  construction 
and  maintenance  too  great  to  recommend  it  to  the 
average  college  of  the  future  as  the  best  mode  of 
limiting  the  elective  principle. 

Probably,  however,  this  difficulty  will  chiefly  be 
felt  by  persons  engaged  in  the  actual  work  of  edu- 
cational organization.  The  outer  public  will  think 
it  a  more  serious  objection  that  grouped  colleges  are 
in  reality  professional  schools  carried  down  to  the 
limits  of  boyhood.  So  far  as  they  hold  by  their  groups, 
they  are  nurseries  of  specialization.  That  this  is 
necessarily  so  may  not  at  first  be  apparent.  A  little 
consideration  of  the  contrast  in  aim  between  group 
systems  and  prescribed  will  make  the  matter  plain. 
Prescribed  systems  have  gained  their  long  hold  on 
popular  confidence  by  aiming  at  harmonious  culture. 
They  argue,  justly  enough,  that  each  separate  sort 
of  knowledge  furnishes  something  of  its  own  to  the 
making  of  a  man.  This  particular  "something," 
they  say,  can  be  had  from  no  other  source.  The  sum 
of  these  "somethings"  constitutes  a  rounded  whole. 
The  man  who  has  not  experienced  each  of  them  in 
some  degree,  however  small,  is  imperfectly  planned. 
One  who  has  been  touched  by  all  has  laid  the  foun- 
dations of  a  liberal  education.  Degree  of  acquaint- 
ance with  this  subject  or  with  that  may  subsequently 
enlarge.  Scholarly  interest  may  concentrate.  But 
at  the  first,  the  proper  aim  is  balanced  knowledge, 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        235 

harmonious   development   of  all   essential   powers, 
avoidance  of  one-sidedness. 

On  this  aim  the  group  system  bestows  but  a  second- 
ary attention.  Regarding  primarily  studies,  not  men, 
it  attempts  to  organize  single  connected  departments 
of  knowledge.  Accordingly  it  permits  only  those 
studies  to  be  pursued  together  which  immediately 
cohere.  It  lays  out  five,  ten,  any  number  of  paths 
through  the  field  of  knowledge,  and  to  one  of  these 
paths  the  pilgrim  is  confined.  Each  group  constitutes 
a  specialty,  —  a  specialty  intensified  in  character  as, 
in  order  to  escape  the  difficulties  of  maintenance  just 
pointed  out,  the  number  of  groups  is  allowed  to 
increase.  By  insistence  on  specialization  regard  for 
general  culture  is  driven  into  a  subordinate  place. 
The  advocates  of  prescription  maintain  that  there 
are  not  half  a  dozen  ground-plans  of  perfected  hu- 
manity. They  say  there  is  but  one.  If  we  introduce 
variety  of  design  into  a  curriculum,  we  neglect  that 
ideal  man  who  resides  alike  in  all.  We  trust,  on  the 
contrary,  in  our  power  to  hit  some  line  of  study  which 
may  deservedly  appeal  to  one  human  being  while 
not  so  appealing  to  another.  We  simply  note  the 
studies  which  are  most  congruous  with  the  special 
line  selected,  and  by  this  congruity  we  shape  our 
group.  In  the  new  aim,  congruity  of  studies,  adapt- 
ation to  a  professional  purpose,  takes  precedence 
of  harmonious  development  of  powers. 


236         ERRONEOUS  LIMITATIONS 

I  have  no  doubt  that  specialization  is  destined  to 
become  more  marked  in  the  American  education  of 
the  future.  It  must  become  so  if  we  are  to  produce 
the  strong  departmental  scholars  who  illuminate 
learning  in  other  countries;  indeed,  it  must  become 
so  if  we  are  to  train  competent  experts  for  the  affairs 
of  daily  life.  The  popular  distrust  of  specializing  is 
sure  to  grow  less  as  our  people  become  familiar  with 
its  effects  and  see  how  often  narrow  and  thorough 
study,  undertaken  in  early  life,  leads  to  ultimate 
breadth.  It  is  a  pretty  dream  that  a  man  may  start 
broad  and  then  concentrate,  but  nine  out  of  every 
ten  strong  men  have  taken  the  opposite  course. 
They  have  begun  in  some  one-sided  way,  and  have 
added  other  sides  as  occasion  required.  Almost  in 
his  teens  Shakespeare  makes  a  specialty  of  the 
theatre,  Napoleon  of  military  science,  Beethoven  of 
music,  Hunter  of  medicine,  Faraday  of  chemistry, 
Hamilton  of  political  science.  The  great  body  of 
painters,  musicians,  poets,  novelists,  theologians, 
politicians,  are  early  specialists.  In  fact,  self-made 
men  are  generally  specialists.  Something  has  aroused 
an  interest,  and  they  have  followed  it  out  until  they 
have  surveyed  a  wide  horizon  from  a  single  point  of 
view.  In  offering  wider  opportunities  for  specializa- 
tion, colleges  have  merely  been  assimilating  their 
own  modes  of  training  to  those  which  prevail  in  the 
world  at  large. 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        237 

It  does  not,  therefore,  seem  to  me  objectionable 
that  group  systems  set  a  high  value  on  specializa- 
tion. That  is  what  every  man  does,  and  every  clear- 
eyed  college  must  do  it  too.  What  I  object  to  is  that 
group  systems,  so  far  as  they  adhere  to  their  aim, 
enforce  specialization.  Among  every  half-dozen  stu- 
dents, probably  one  will  be  injured  if  he  cannot 
specialize  largely;  two  or  three  more  might  wisely 
specialize  in  lower  degree;  but  to  force  the  remain- 
ing two  or  three  into  curricula  shaped  by  professional 
bias  is  to  do  them  serious  damage.  There  are  sober 
boys  of  little  intrepidity  or  positive  taste,  boys  who 
properly  enough  wish  to  know  what  others  know. 
They  will  not  make  scholars.  They  were  not  born 
to  enlarge  the  boundaries  of  knowledge.  They  have 
another  function :  they  preserve  and  distribute  such 
knowledge  as  already  exists.  Many  of  them  are  per- 
sons of  wealth.  To  furnish  them  glimpses  of  varied 
learning  is  to  save  them  from  barbarism.  Still  an- 
other large  class  is  composed  of  boys  who  develop 
late.  They  are  boys  who  will  one  day  acquire  an  in- 
terest of  their  own,  if  they  are  allowed  to  roam  about 
somewhat  aimlessly  in  the  domain  of  wisdom  until 
they  are  twenty-one.  Both  of  these  classes  have  their 
rights.  The  prescribed  system  was  built  to  support 
them ;  the  elective  shelters  and  improves  them ;  but 
a  group  system  shuts  them  all  out,  if  they  will  not 
on  leaving  school  adopt  professional  courses.  When- 


238  THE  ELECTIVE   SYSTEM 

ever  I  can  hear  of  a  group  system  which  like  the  old 
college  has  a  place  for  the  indistinct  young  man, 
and  like  the  new  elective  college  matures  him  an- 
nually by  suggesting  that  he  take  part  in  shaping 
his  own  career,  I  will  accept  the  group  system. 
Then,  too,  the  public  will  probably  accept  it.  Until 
then,  rigid  groups  will  be  thought  by  many  to  lay 
too  great  a  strain  on  unseasoned  powers  of  choice, 
to  present  too  many  practical  difficulties  of  construc- 
tion, and  to  show  too  doctrinaire  a  confidence  that 
every  youth  will  fit  without  pinching  into  a  special- 
ized class. 


X 


NECESSARY  LIMITATIONS  OF  THE  ELECTIVE 
SYSTEM 

THE  preceding  paper  has  sufficiently  discussed 
the  impossible  limitations  of  the  elective  system,  and 
has  shown  with  some  minuteness  the  grounds  of 
their  impossibility.  The  methods  there  examined 
are  the  only  ones  suggested  by  my  critics.  They  all 
agree  in  this,  that  they  seek  to  narrow  the  scope  of 
choice.  They  try  to  combine  with  it  a  hostile  factor, 
and  they  differ  merely  in  their  mode  of  combination. 
The  first  puts  a  restraining  check  before  election ;  the 
second  puts  one  by  its  side ;  the  third  makes  the  two 
inseparable  by  allowing  nothing  to  be  chosen  which 
is  not  first  prescribed.  The  general  purpose  of  all 
these  methods  is  mine  also.  Election  must  be  limited. 
Unchartered  choice  is  licentious  and  self -destructive. 
I  quarrel  with  them  only  because  the  modes  of  effect- 
ing their  purpose  tend  to  produce  results  of  a  tran- 
sient and  inappropriate  sort.  The  aim  of  education, 
as  I  conceive  it,  is  to  spiritualize  the  largest  possible 
number  of  persons,  that  is,  to  teach  them  how  to  do 
their  own  thinking  and  willing  and  to  do  it  well. 
But  these  methods  effect  something  widely  different 


240          NECESSARY  LIMITATIONS 

They  either  aristocratize  where  they  should  demo- 
cratize, or  they  belittle  where  they  should  mature,  or 
else  they  professionalize  where  they  should  human- 
ize. A  common  trouble  besets  them  all :  the  limiting 
authority  is  placed  in  external  and  arbitrary  juxta- 
position to  the  personal  initiative  which  it  professes 
to  support.  It  should  grow  out  of  this  initiative  and 
be  its  interpreter  and  realization.  By  limitation  of 
choice  the  proposers  of  these  schemes  appear  to  mean 
making  choice  less.  I  mean  fortifying  it,  keeping  it 
true  to  itself,  making  it  more.  Control  that  dimin- 
ishes the  quantity  of  choice  is  one  thing ;  control  that 
raises  the  quality,  quite  another.  How  important  is 
this  distinction  and  how  frequently  it  is  forgotten! 
Words  like  "limitation,"  "control,"  " authority ,"- 
"obedience,"  are  words  of  majesty,  but  words  also 
of  doubtful  import.  They  carry  a  freight  of  wisdom 
or  of  folly,  according  to  the  end  towards  which  they 
steer.  In  order  to  sanction  or  discard  limitations 
which  induce  obedience,  we  must  bear  that  end  in 
mind.  Let  us  stop  a  moment,  and  see  that  we  have  it 
in  mind  now. 

Old  educational  systems  are  often  said  to  have 
erred  by  excess  of  authority.  I  could  not  say  so.  The 
elective  system,  if  it  is  to  possess  the  future,  must  be- 
come as  authoritative  as  they.  More  accurately  we 
say  that  their  authority  was  of  a  wrong  sort.  A  father 
may  exercise  an  authority  over  his  child  no  less  direc- 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        241 

tive  than  that  of  the  master  over  the  slave;  but  the 
father  is  trying  to  accomplish  something  which  the 
master  disregards ;  the  father  hopes  to  make  the  will 
of  another  strong,  the  master  to  make  it  weak ;  the 
father  commands  what  the  child  himself  would  wish, 
had  he  sufficient  experience.  The  child's  obedience 
accordingly  enlightens,  steadies,  invigorates  his  in- 
dependent will.  Invigoration  is  the  purpose  of  the 
command.  The  authority  is  akin  —  secretly  akin  — 
to  the  child's  own  desires.  No  alien  power  intervenes, 
as  when  a  slave  obeys.  Here  a  foreign  will  thwarts 
the  slave's  proper  motions.  Over  against  his  own 
legitimate  desires,  the  desire  of  a  totally  different 
being  appears  and  claims  precedence.  Obedience 
like  this  brings  no  ennoblement.  The  oftener  a  child 
obeys,  the  less  of  a  child  is  he;  the  oftener  a  slave, 
the  more  completely  he  is  a  slave.  Roughly  to  say, 
then,  that  submission  to  authority  is  healthy  for  a 
college  boy,  argues  a  mental  confusion.  There  are 
two  kinds  of  authority,  —  the  authority  of  moral 
guidance,  and  the  authority  of  repressive  control : 
parental  authority,  respecting  and  vivifying  the  in- 
dividual life  and  thus  continually  tending  to  super- 
sede itself;  and  masterly  authority,  whose  command, 
out  of  relation  to  the  obeyer's  wish,  tends  ever  to 
bring  the  obedient  into  bondage.  Which  shall  col- 
lege authority  be  ?  Authority  is  necessary,  ever-pres- 
ent authority.  If  the  young  man's  choice  is  to  become 


242          NECESSARY  LIMITATIONS 

a  thing  of  worth,  it  must  be  encompassed  with  limit- 
ations. But  as  the  need  of  these  limitations  springs 
from  the  imperfections  of  choice,  so  should  their 
aim  be  to  perfect  choice,  not  to  repress  it.  To  im- 
pose limitations  which  do  not  ultimately  enlarge  the 
youth  they  bind  is  to  make  the  means  of  education 
"oblige  against  its  main  end." 

This  moral  authority  is  what  the  new  education 
seeks.  To  a  casual  eye,  the  colleges  of  to-day  seem 
to  be  growing  disorganized;  a  closer  view  shows 
construction  taking  place,  but  taking  place  along 
the  lines  of  the  vital  distinction  just  pointed  out. 
Men  are  striving  to  bring  about  a  germane  and  ethi- 
cal authority  in  the  room  of  the  baser  mechanical 
authorities  of  the  past.  In  this  distinction,  then,  a 
clue  is  to  be  found  which,  if  followed  up,  will  lead 
us  away  from  impossible  limitations  of  the  elective 
system,  and  conduct  us  at  length  to  the  possible, 
nay,  to  the  inevitable  ones.  As  the  elective  principle 
is  essentially  ethical,  its  limitations,  if  helpfully  con- 
gruous, must  be  ethical  too.  They  must  be  simply 
the  means  of  bringing  home  to  the  young  chooser 
the  sacred  conditions  of  choice;  which  conditions, 
if  I  rightly  understand  them,  may  compactly  be 
entitled  those  of  intentionality,  information,  and 
persistence.  To  secure  these  conditions,  limitations 
exist.  In  the  very  nature  of  choice  such  conditions 
are  implied.  Choice  is  sound  as  they  prevail,  whim- 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM       243 

sical  as  they  diminish.  An  education  which  lays 
stress  on  the  elective  principle  is  bound  to  lay  stress 
on  these  conditions  also.  It  cannot  slip  over  into 
lazy  ways  of  letting  its  students  drift,  and  still  look 
for  credit  as  an  elective  system.  People  will  distrust 
it.  That  is  why  they  distrust  Harvard  to-day.  The 
objections  brought  against  the  elective  system  of 
Harvard  are  in  reality  not  levelled  against  the  elec- 
tive system  at  all.  They  are  directed  against  its 
bastard  brother,  laissez-faire.  Objectors  suspect  that 
the  conditions  of  choice  which  I  have  named  are  not 
fulfilled.  They  are  not  fulfilled,  I  confess,  or  rather 
I  stoutly  maintain.  To  come  anywhere  near  ful- 
filling them  requires  long  time  and  study,  and  action 
unimpeded  by  a  misconceiving  community.  Both 
time  and  study  Harvard  has  given,  has  given  largely. 
The  records  of  scholarship  and  deportment  which  I 
exhibited  in  my  first  paper  show  in  how  high  a  de- 
gree Harvard  has  already  been  able  to  remove  from 
choice  the  capricious,  ignorant,  and  unsteadfast 
characteristics  which  rightly  bring  it  into  disrepute. 
But  much  remains  to  do,  and  in  that  doing  we  are 
hampered  by  the  fact  that  a  portion  of  the  public  is 
still  looking  in  wrong  directions.  It  cannot  get  over 
its  hankering  after  the  delusive  modes  of  limitation 
which  I  have  discussed.  It  does  not  persistently  see 
that  at  present  the  proper  work  of  education  is  the 
study  of  means  by  which  self-direction  may  be  ren- 


244          NECESSARY  LIMITATIONS 

dered  safe.  Leaders  of  education  themselves  see  this 
but  dimly,  as  the  papers  of  my  critics  naively  show. 
Until  choice  was  frankly  accepted  as  the  fit  basis 
for  the  direction  of  a  person  by  a  person,  its  forti- 
fying limitations  could  not  be  studied.  Now  they 
must  be  studied,  now  that  the  old  methods  of  auto- 
cratic control  are  breaking  down.  As  a  moral  will 
comes  to  be  recognized  as  the  best  sort  of  steam 
power,  the  modes  of  generating  that  power  acquire 
new  claims  to  attention.  Henceforth  the  training 
of  the  will  must  be  undertaken  by  the  elective  sys- 
tem as  an  integral  part  of  its  discipline. 

I  am  not  so  presumptuous  as  to  attempt  to  proph- 
esy the  precise  forms  which  methods  of  moral  guid- 
ance will  take.  Moral  guidance  is  a  delicate  affair. 
Its  spirit  is  more  important  than  its  procedure. 
Flexibility  is  its  strength.  Methods  final,  rigid,  and 
minute  do  not  belong  to  it.  Nor  can  it  afford  to  for- 
get the  one  great  truth  of  laissez-faire,  that  wills 
which  are  to  be  kept  fresh  and  vigorous  will  not  bear 
much  looking  after.  Time,  too,  is  an  important  factor 
in  the  shaping  of  moral  influences.  Experiments 
now  in  progress  at  Harvard  and  elsewhere  must 
discriminate  safe  from  unsafe  limitations.  Leaving 
then  to  the  future  the  task  of  showing  how  wide  the 
scope  of  maturing  discipline  may  become,  I  will 
merely  try  to  sketch  the  main  lines  along  which 
experiments  are  now  proceeding,  I  will  give  a  few 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        245 

illustrative  examples  of  what  is  being  done  and  why, 
and  I  will  state  somewhat  at  large  how,  in  my  judg- 
ment, more  is  yet  to  be  accomplished.  To  make  the 
matter  clear,  a  free  exposition  shall  be  given  of  the 
puzzling  headings  already  named ;  that  is,  I  will  first 
ramblingly  discuss  the  limitations  on  choice  which 
may  deepen  the  student's  intentionality  of  aim; 
secondly,  those  which  increase  his  information  in 
regard  to  means;  and  thirdly,  those  which  may 
strengthen  his  persistence  in  a  course  once  chosen. 
I.  That  intentionality  should  be  cultivated,  I 
need  not  spend  many  words  in  explaining.  Every- 
body acknowledges  that  without  a  certain  degree  of 
it  choice  is  impossible.  Many  persons  assert  also 
that  boys  come  to  college  with  no  clear  intentions, 
not  knowing  what  they  want,  waiting  to  be  told; 
for  such,  it  is  said,  an  elective  system  is  manifestly 
absurd.  I  admit  the  fact.  It  is  true.  The  majority 
of  the  freshmen  whom  I  have  known  in  the  last  seven- 
teen years  have  been,  at  entrance,  deficient  in  serious 
aims.  But  from  this  fact  I  draw  a  conclusion  quite 
opposite  to  the  one  suggested.  It  is  election,  sys- 
tematized election,  which  these  boys  need;  for  when 
we  say  a  young  student  has  no  definite  aims,  we 
imply  that  he  has  never  become  sufficiently  interested 
in  any  given  intellectual  line  to  have  acquired  the 
wish  to  follow  that  line  farther.  Such  a  state  of 
things  is  lamentable,  and  certainly  shows  that  pre- 


246          NECESSARY  LIMITATIONS 

scribed  methods  —  the  proper  methods,  in  my  judg- 
ment, for  the  school  years — have  in  his  case  proved 
inadequate.  It  is  useless  to  continue  them  into 
years  confessedly  less  suited  to  their  exercise.  Per- 
haps it  is  about  equally  useless  to  abandon  the  ill- 
formed  boy  to  unguided  choice.  Prescription  says, 
"This  person  is  unfit  to  choose,  keep  him  so"; 
laissez-faire  says,  "If  he  is  unfit  to  choose,  let  him 
perish";  but  a  watchful  elective  system  must  say, 
"  Granting  him  to  be  unfit,  if  he  is  not  spoiled,  I  will 
fit  him."  And  can  we  fit  him  ?  I  know  well  enough 
that  indifferent  teachers  incline  to  shirk  the  task. 
They  like  to  divide  pupils  into  the  deceptive  classes 
of  good  and  bad,  meaning  by  the  former  those  who 
intend  to  work,  and  by  the  latter  those  who  intend 
not  to.  But  we  must  get  rid  of  indifferent  teachers. 
Teachers  with  enthusiasm  in  them  soon  discover 
that  the  two  classes  of  pupils  I  have  named  may  as 
well  be  dismissed  from  consideration.  Where  aims 
have  become  definite,  a  teacher  has  little  more  to 
do.  The  boy  who  means  to  work  will  get  learning 
under  the  poorest  teacher  and  the  worst  system; 
while  the  boy  who  means  not  to  work  may  be  forced 
up  to  the  Pierian  spring,  but  will  hardly  be  made 
to  drink.  A  vigorous  teacher  does  not  assume  in- 
tention to  be  ready-made.  He  counts  it  his  contin- 
ual office  to  help  in  making  it.  On  the  middle  two 
quarters  of  a  class  he  spends  his  hardest  efforts,  on 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        247 

students  who  are  friendly  to  learning  but  not  im- 
passioned for  it,  on  those  who  like  the  results  of  study 
but  like  tennis  also,  and  popularity,  and  cigars, 
and  slackness.  The  culture  of  these  weak  wills  is 
the  problem  of  every  college.  Here  are  unintentional 
boys  waiting  to  be  turned  into  intentional  men. 
What  limitations  on  intellectual  and  moral  vagrancy 
will  help  them  forward  ? 

The  chief  limitation,  the  one  underlying  all  others, 
the  one  which  no  clever  contrivance  can  ever  super- 
sede, is  vitalized  teaching.  Suitable  subjects,  attrac- 
tively taught,  awake  lethargic  intention  as  nothing 
else  can.  An  elective  system,  as  even  its  enemies 
confess,  enormously  stimulates  the  zeal  of  teachers. 
It  consequently  brings  to  bear  on  unawakened  boys 
influences  of  a  strangely  quickening  character.  When 
I  hear  a  man  trained  under  the  old  methods  of  pre- 
scription say,  "At  the  time  I  was  in  college  I  could 
not  have  chosen  studies  for  myself,  and  I  do  not  be- 
lieve my  son  can,"  I  see,  and  am  not  surprised  to  see, 
that  he  does  not  understand  what  forces  the  elec- 
tive system  sets  astir.  So  powerful  an  influence  have 
these  forces  over  both  teachers  and  pupils,  that  ques- 
tions of  hard  and  easy  studies  do  not,  as  outsiders 
are  apt  to  suppose,  seriously  disturb  the  formation 
of  sound  intentions.  The  many  leaders  in  educa- 
tion whose  opinions  on  election  I  quoted  in  my 
previous  paper  agree  that  the  new  modes  tend  to 


248          NECESSARY  LIMITATIONS 

sobriety  and  intentionality  of  aim.  When  Professor 
Ladd  speaks  of  "  the  unexpected  wisdom  and  manli- 
ness of  the  choices  already  made"  in  the  first  year 
of  election  at  New  Haven,  he  well  expresses  the  grati- 
fied surprise  which  every  one  experiences  on  perceiv- 
ing in  the  very  constitution  of  the  elective  system  a 
sort  of  limitation  on  wayward  choice.  This  limita- 
tion seems  to  me,  as  Professor  Ladd  says  he  found 
it,1  a  tolerable  preventive  of  choices  directly  aimed  at 
ease.  In  a  community  devoted  to  athletics,  baseball 
is  not  played  because  it  is  "  soft,"  and  football  avoided 
on  account  of  its  difficulty.  A  similar  state  of  things 
must  be  brought  about  in  studies.  In  a  certain  low 
degree  it  has  come  about  already.  As  election  breeds 
new  life  in  teaching,  the  old  slovenly  habit  of  lik- 
ing best  what  costs  least  begins  to  disappear.  Easy 
courses  will  exist  and  ought  to  exist.  Prescribed 
colleges,  it  is  often  forgotten,  have  more  of  them  than 
elective  colleges.  The  important  matter  is,  to  see  that 
they  fall  to  the  right  persons.  Where  everything  is 
prescribed,  students  who  do  not  wish  easy  studies 
are  still  obliged  to  take  them.  Under  election,  soft 
courses  may  often  be  pursued  with  advantage.  A 
student  whose  other  courses  largely  depend  for  their 

1  Doubtless  some  have  carried  out  the  intention  of  making 
everything  as  soft  as  possible  for  themselves.  But  the  choices,  in 
fact,  do  not  as  yet  show  the  existence  of  any  such  intention  in  any 
considerable  number  of  cases;  they  show  rather  the  very  reverse. 
—  Professor  Ladd  in  The  New  Englander,  January,  1885,  p.  119. 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        249 

profit  on  the  amount  of  private  reading  or  of  labora- 
tory practice  accomplished  in  connection  with  them 
is  wise  in  choosing  one  or  more  in  which  the  bulk 
of  the  work  is  taken  by  the  teacher.  I  do  not  say 
that  soft  courses  are  always  selected  with  these  wise 
aims  in  view.  Many  I  know  are  not.  We  have  our 
proper  share  of  hardened  loafers  —  "  tares  in  our 
sustaining  corn "  —  who  have  an  unerring  instinct 
as  to  where  they  can  most  safely  settle.  But  large 
numbers  of  the  men  in  soft  courses  are  there  to  good 
purpose;  and  I  maintain  that  the  superficial  study 
of  a  subject,  acquainting  one  with  broad  outlines,  is 
not  necessarily  a  worthless  study.  At  Harvard  to- 
day I  believe  we  have  too  few  such  superficial  courses. 
As  I  look  over  the  Elective  Pamphlet,  and  note  the 
necessarily  varying  degrees  of  difficulty  in  the  studies 
announced  there,  I  count  but  six  which  can,  with  any 
justice,  be  entitled  soft  courses ;  and  several  of  these 
must  be  reckoned  by  anybody  an  inspiration  to  the 
students  who  pursue  them.  There  is  a  tendency 
in  the  elective  system,  as  I  have  shown  elsewhere, 
to  reduce  the  number  of  soft  courses  somewhat  be- 
low the  desirable  number. 

I  insist,  therefore,  that  under  a  pretty  loose  elec- 
tive system  boys  are  little  disposed  to  intentionally 
vicious  choices.  My  fears  look  in  a  different  direc- 
tion. I  do  not  expect  depravity,  but  I  want  to  head 
off  aimless  trifling.  I  agree  with  the  opponents  of 


250          NECESSARY  LIMITATIONS 

election  in  thinking  that  there  is  danger,  especially 
during  the  early  years  of  college  life,  that  righteous 
intention  may  not  be  distinct  and  energetic.  Boys 
drift.  Inadequate  influences  induce  their  decisions. 
The  inclinations  of  the  clique  in  which  a  young 
man  finds  himself  are,  without  much  thought,  ac- 
cepted as  his  own.  Heedlessness  is  the  young  man's 
bane.  It  should  not  be  mistaken  for  vice;  the  two 
are  different.  A  boy  who  will  enter  a  dormitory  at 
twelve  o'clock  at  night,  and  go  to  the  third  story 
whistling  and  beating  time  on  the  banisters,  certainly 
seems  a  brutish  person;  but  he  is  ordinarily  a  kind 
enough  fellow,  capable  of  a  good  deal  of  self-sacri- 
fice when  brought  face  to  face  with  need.  He  simply 
does  not  think.  So  it  is  in  study :  there,  too,  he  does 
not  think.  Now  in  college  a  boy  should  learn  per- 
petually to  think ;  and  an  excellent  way  of  helping 
him  to  learn  is  to  ask  him  often  what  he  is  thinking 
about.  The  object  of  the  questioning  should  not  be 
to  thwart  the  boy's  aims,  rather  to  insure  that  they 
are  in  reality  his  own.  Essentially  his  to  the  last  they 
should  remain,  even  though  intrinsically  they  may  not 
be  the  best.  Young  persons,  much  more  than  their 
elders,  require  to  talk  over  plans  from  time  to  time 
with  an  experienced  critic,  in  order  to  learn  by  de- 
grees the  difficult  art  of  planning.  By  such  talk  in- 
tentionality  is  fortified.  There  is  much  of  this  talk 
already;  talk  of  younger  students  with  older  talk 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE   SYSTEM       251 

with  wise  persons  at  home,  and  more  and  more  every 
year  with  the  teachers  of  the  courses  left  and  the 
courses  entered.  All  this  is  good.  Haphazard  modes 
breed  an  astonishing  average  of  choices  that  possess 
a  meaning.  The  waste  of  a  laissez-faire  system  comes 
nowhere  near  the  waste  of  a  prescribed.  But  what  is 
good  when  compared  with  a  bad  thing  may  be  poor 
when  compared  with  excellence  itself.  We  must  go 
on.  A  college,  like  a  man,  should  always  be  saying, 
"  Never  was  I  so  good  as  to-day,  and  never  again  will 
I  be  so  bad."  We  must  welcome  criticisms  more  than 
praises,  and  seek  after  our  weak  points  as  after  hid 
treasures.  The  elective  system  seems  to  me  weak  at 
present  through  lacking  organized  means  of  bringing 
the  student  and  his  intentions  face  to  face.  Intentions 
grow  by  being  looked  at.  At  the  English  universities 
a  young  man  on  entering  a  college  is  put  in  charge 
of  a  special  tutor,  without  whose  consent  he  can  do 
little  either  in  the  way  of  study  or  of  personal  man- 
agement.1 Dependence  so  extreme  is  perhaps  bet- 
ter suited  to  an  infant  school  than  to  an  American 
college;  and  even  in  England,  where  respectful  sub- 
servience on  the  part  of  the  young  has  been  cultivated 
for  generations,  the  system  is  losing  ground.  Since 
the  tutors  were  allowed  to  marry  and  to  leave  the 

1  As  the  minute  personal  care  given  to  individual  students  in 
the  English  universities  is  often  and  deservedly  praised,  I  may  as 
well  say  that  it  costs  something.  Oxford  spends  each  year  about 
$2,000,000  on  2500  men;  Harvard,  $650,000  on  1700. 


252          NECESSARY  LIMITATIONS 

•  college  home,  tutorial  influence  has  been  changing. 
In  most  American  colleges  twenty-five  years  ago 
there  were  officers  known  as  class  tutors,  to  whom, 
in  case  of  need,  a  student  might  turn.  Petty  permis- 
sions were  received  from  these  men,  instead  of  from 
a  mechanical  central  office.  So  far  as  this  plan  set 
personal  supervision  in  the  place  of  routine  it  was, 
in  my  eyes,  good.  But  the  relation  of  a  class  tutor  to 
his  boys  was  usually  one  of  more  awe  than  friend- 
ship. At  the  Johns  Hopkins  University  there  is  a 
board  of  advisers,  to  some  member  of  which  each 
student  is  assigned  at  entrance.  The  adviser  stands 
in  loco  parentis  to  his  charges.  The  value  of  such 
adjustments  depends  on  the  nature  of  the  parental 
tie.  If  the  relation  is  worked  so  as  to  stimulate  the 
student's  independence,  it  is  good;  if  so  as  to  dis- 
charge him  from  responsibility,  it  unfits  for  the  life 
that  follows.  At  Harvard  special  students  not  can- 
didates for  a  degree  have  recently  been  put  in  charge 
of  a  committee,  to  whom  they  are  obliged  to  report 
their  previous  history  and  their  plans  of  study  for 
each  succeeding  year.  The  committee  must  know 
at  all  times  what  their  charges  are  doing.  Something 
of  this  sort,  I  am  convinced,  will  be  demanded  at 
no  distant  day,  as  a  means  of  steadying  all  students 
in  elective  colleges.  Large  personal  supervision 
need  not  mean  diminution  of  freedom.  A  young  man 
may  possess  his  freedom  more  solidly  if  he  recog- 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        253 

nizes  an  obligation  to  state  and  defend  the  reasons 
which  induce  his  choice.  For  myself,  I  should  be 
willing  to  make  the  functions  of  such  advisory  com- 
mittees somewhat  broad.  As  a  college  grows,  the 
old  ways  of  bringing  about  acquaintance  between 
officers  and  students  become  impracticable.  But  the 
need  of  personal  acquaintance,  unhappily,  does  not 
cease.  New  ways  should  be  provided.  A  boy  dropped 
into  the  middle  of  a  large  college  must  not  be  lost  to 
sight ;  he  must  be  looked  after.  To  allow  the  teacher's 
work  of  instruction  to  become  divorced  from  his  pas- 
toral, his  priestly,  function  is  to  cheapen  and  ex- 
ternalize education.  I  would  have  every  student  in 
college  supplied  with  somebody  who  might  serve  as 
a  discretionary  friend;  and  I  should  not  think  it  a 
disadvantage  that  such  an  expectation  of  friendship 
would  be  as  apt  to  better  the  instructor  as  the  student 
Before  leaving  this  part  of  my  subject,  I  may 
mention  a  subordinate,  but  still  valuable,  means  of 
limiting  choice  so  as  to  increase  its  intentionality. 
The  studies  open  to  choice  in  the  early  years  should 
be  few  and  elementary.  The  significance  of  ad- 
vanced courses  cannot  be  understood  till  elementary 
ones  are  mastered,  and  immature  choice  should  not 
be  confused  by  many  issues.  At  Harvard  this  mode 
of  limitation  is  largely  employed.  Although  the 
elective  list  for  1886-87  shows  172  courses,  a  fresh- 
man has  hardly  more  than  one  eighth  of  these  to 


254          NECESSARY  LIMITATIONS 

choose  from;  in  any  given  case  this  number  will 
probably  be  reduced  about  one  half  by  insufficient 
preparation  or  conflict  of  hours.  Seemingly  about  a 
third  of  the  list  is  offered  to  the  average  sophomore ; 
but  this  amount  is  again  cut  down  nearly  one  half 
by  the  operation  of  similar  causes.  The  practice  of 
hedging  electives  with  qualifications  is  a  growing 
one.  It  may  well  grow  more.  It  offers  guidance  pre- 
cisely at  the  point  where  it  is  most  needed.  It  pro- 
tects rational  choice,  and  guards  against  many  of 
the  dangers  which  the  foes  of  election  justly  dread. 
II.  A  second  class  of  limitations  of  the  elective 
system,  possible  and  friendly,  springs  from  the  need 
of  furnishing  the  young  elector  ample  information 
about  that  which  he  is  to  choose.  The  best  inten- 
tions require  judicious  aim.  If  studies  are  taken  in 
the  dark,  without  right  anticipation  of  their  subject- 
matter,  or  in  ignorance  of  their  relation  to  other 
studies,  small  results  follow.  Here,  I  think  it  will  be 
generally  agreed,  prescribed  systems  are  especially 
weak.  Their  pupils  have  little  knowledge  beforehand 
of  what  a  course  is  designed  to  accomplish.  Work  is 
undertaken  blindly,  minds  consenting  as  little  as 
wills.  An  elective  system  is  impossible  under  such 
conditions.  Its  student  must  know  when  he  chooses, 
what  he  chooses.  He  must  be  able  to  estimate 
whether  the  choice  of  Greek  5  will  further  his  designs 
better  than  the  choice  of  Greek  8. 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        255 

At  Harvard,  methods  of  furnishing  information 
are  pretty  fully  developed.  In  May  an  elective  pam- 
phlet is  issued,  which  announces  everything  that  is 
to  be  taught  in  the  college  during  the  following  year. 
Most  departments,  also,  issue  additional  pamphlets, 
describing  with  much  detail  the  nature  of  their  special 
courses,  and  the  considerations  which  should  lead  a 
student  to  one  rather  than  another.  If  the  courses 
of  a  department  are  arranged  properly,  pursuing  one 
gives  the  most  needful  knowledge  about  the  available 
next.  This  knowledge  is  generally  supplemented  at 
the  close  of  the  year  by  explanations  on  the  part  of 
the  instructor  about  the  courses  that  follow.  In  the 
Elective  Pamphlet  a  star,  prefixed  to  courses  of  an 
advanced  and  especially  technical  character,  indi- 
cates that  the  instructor  must  be  privately  consulted 
before  these  courses  can  be  chosen.  Consultations 
with  instructors  about  all  courses  are  frequent. 
That  most  effective  means  of  distributing  information, 
the  talk  of  students,  goes  on  unceasingly.  With  time, 
perhaps,  means  may  be  devised  for  informing  a 
student  more  largely  what  he  is  choosing.  The  full- 
est information  is  desirable.  That  which  is  at  present 
most  needed  is,  I  think,  some  rough  indication  of 
the  relations  of  the  several  provinces  of  study  to  one 
another.  Information  of  this  sort  is  peculiarly  hard 
to  supply,  because  the  knowledge  on  which  it  professes 
to  rest  cannot  be  precise  and  unimpeachable.  We 


256          NECESSARY  LIMITATIONS 

deal  here  with  intricate  problems,  in  regard  to  which 
experts  are  far  from  agreed,  problems  where  the  dif- 
ferent point  of  view  provided  in  the  nature  of  each 
individual  will  rightly  readjust  whatever  general 
conclusions  are  drawn.  The  old  type  of  college  had 
an  easy  way  of  settling  these  troublesome  matters 
dogmatically,  by  voting,  in  open  faculty-meeting, 
what  should  be  counted  the  normal  sequence  of 
studies,  and  what  their  mixture.  But  as  the  votes  of 
different  colleges  showed  no  uniformity,  people  have 
gradually  come  to  perceive  that  the  subject  is  one 
where  only  large  outlines  can  distinctly  be  made  out.1 

1  I  may  not  have  a  better  opportunity  than  this  to  clear  up  a 
petty  difficulty  which  seems  to  agitate  some  of  my  critics.  They  say 
they  want  the  degree  of  A.  B.  to  mean  something  definite,  while 
at  present,  under  the  elective  system,  it  means  one  thing  for  John 
Doe,  and  something  altogether  different  for  his  classmate,  Richard 
Roe.  That  is  true.  Besides  embodying  the  general  signification 
that  the  bearer  has  been  working  four  years  in  a  way  to  satisfy 
college  guardians,  the  stately  letters  do  take  on  an  individual  varia- 
tion of  meaning  for  every  man  who  wins  them.  They  must  do  so 
as  long  as  we  are  engaged  in  the  formation  of  living  persons.  If 
the  college  were  a  factory,  our  case  would  be  different.  We  might 
then  offer  a  label  which  would  keep  its  identity  of  meaning  for  all 
the  articles  turned  out.  Wherever  education  has  been  a  living 
thing,  the  single  degree  has  always  contained  this  element  of  va- 
riety. The  German  degree  is  as  diverse  in  meaning  as  ours.  The 
degree  of  the  English  university  is  diverse,  and  more  diverse  for 
Honors  men  —  the  only  ones  who  can  properly  be  said  to  deserve  it 
—  than  for  inert  Pass  men.  Degrees  in  this  country  have,  from 
the  first,  had  considerable  diversity,  college  differing  from  college 
in  requirement,  and  certainly  student  from  student  in  attainment. 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        257 

To  these  large  outlines  I  think  it  important  to  direct 
the  attention  of  undergraduates.  In  most  German 
universities  a  course  of  Encyclopddie  is  offered,  a 
course  which  gives  in  brief  a  survey  of  the  sciences, 
and  attempts  to  fix  approximately  the  place  of  each 
in  the  total  organization  of  knowledge.  I  am  not 
aware  that  such  a  course  exists  in  any  American 
college.  Indeed,  there  was  hardly  a  place  for  it  till 
dogmatic  prescription  was  shaken.  But  if  something 
of  the  kind  were  now  established  in  the  freshman 
year,  our  young  men  might  be  relieved  of  a  certain 
intellectual  short-sightedness,  and  the  choices  of  one 
year  might  better  keep  in  view  those  of  the  other  three. 
III.  And  now  granting  that  a  student  has  started 
with  good  intentions  and  is  well  informed  about  the 
direction  where  profit  lies,  still  have  we  any  assur- 
ance that  he  will  push  those  intentions  with  a  fair 
degree  of  tenacity  through  the  distractions  which  be- 
set his  daily  path  ?  We  need,  indeed  we  must  have, 
a  third  class  of  helpful  limitations  which  may  secure 
the  persistent  adhesion  of  our  student  to  his  chosen 
line  of  work.  Probably  this  class  of  limitations  is 

That  twenty-five  years  ago  we  were  approaching  too  great  uni- 
formity in  the  signification  of  degrees,  I  suppose  most  educators 
now  admit.  That  was  a  mechanical  and  stagnant  period,  and  men 
have  brought  over  from  it  to  the  more  active  days  of  the  present 
ideals  formed  then.  Precision  of  statement  goes  with  figures, 
with  etiquette,  with  military  matters;  but  descriptions  of  the 
quality  of  persons  must  be  stated  in  the  round. 


258          NECESSARY  LIMITATIONS 

the  most  important  and  complex  of  all.  To  yield 
a  paying  return,  study  must  be  stuck  to.  A  decision 
has  little  meaning  unless  the  volition  of  to-day  brings 
in  its  train  a  volition  to-morrow.  Self -direction  im- 
plies such  patient  continuance  in  well-doing  that 
only  after  persistence  has  become  somewhat  habit- 
ual can  choice  be  called  mature.  To  establish  on- 
ward-leading habits,  therefore,  should  be  one  of  the 
chief  objects  in  devising  limitations  of  election. 
Only  we  must  not  mistake ;  we  must  look  below  the 
surface.  Mechanical  diligence  often  covers  mental 
sloth.  It  is  not  habits  of  passive  docility  that  are 
desirable,  habits  of  timidity  and  uncriticising  accept- 
ance. Against  forming  these  pernicious  and  easily 
acquired  habits,  it  may  be  necessary  even  to  erect 
barriers.  The  habit  wanted  is  the  habit  of  sponta- 
neous attack.  Prescription  deadened  this  vital  habit; 
it  mechanized.  His  task  removed,  the  student  had 
little  independent  momentum.  Election  invigorates 
the  springs  of  action.  Formerly  I  did  not  see  this,  and 
I  favored  prescribed  systems,  thinking  them  sys- 
tems of  duty.  That  absence  of  an  aggressive  intel- 
lectual life  which  prescribed  studies  induce,  I,  like 
many  others,  mistook  for  faithfulness.  Experience 
has  instructed  me.  I  no  longer  have  any  question 
that  for  the  average  man  sound  habits  of  steady  en- 
deavor grow  best  in  fields  of  choice.  Emerson's 
words  are  words  of  soberness :  — 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        259 

He  that  worketh  high  and  wise 

Nor  pauses  in  his  plan, 
Will  take  the  sun  out  of  the  skies 

Ere  freedom  out  of  man. 

Furthermore,  in  attempting  to  stimulate  persist- 
ence I  believe  we  must  ultimately  rely  on  the  rational 
interest  in  study  which  we  can  arouse  and  hold. 
Undoubtedly  much  can  be  done  to  save  this  inter- 
est from  disturbance  and  to  hold  vacillating  atten- 
tion fixed  upon  it;  but  it,  and  it  alone,  is  to  be  the 
driving  force.  Methods  of  college  government  must 
be  reckoned  wise  as  they  push  into  the  foreground 
the  intrinsic  charm  of  wisdom,  mischievous  as  they 
hide  it  behind  fidelity  to  technical  demand.  In  other 
matters  we  readily  acknowledge  interest  as  an  effi- 
cient force.  We  call  it  a  force  as  broad  as  the  worth 
of  knowledge,  and  as  deep  as  the  curiosity  of  man. 
"Put  your  heart  into  your  work,"  we  say,  "if  you 
will  make  it  excellent."  A  dozen  proverbs  tell  that 
it  is  love  that  makes  the  world  go  round.  Every 
employment  of  life  springs  from  an  underlying  de- 
sire. The  cricketer  wants  to  win  the  game;  the 
fisherman  to  catch  fish ;  the  farmer  to  gather  crops ; 
the  merchant  to  make  money;  the  physician  to  cure 
his  patient;  the  student  to  become  wise.  Eliminate 
desire,  put  in  its  place  allegiance  to  the  rules  of  a 
game,  and  what,  in  any  of  these  cases,  would  be  the 
chance  of  persistent  endeavor?  It  seems  almost  a 


260          NECESSARY  LIMITATIONS 

truism  to  say  that  limitations  of  personal  effort  de- 
signed to  strengthen  persistency  must  be  such  as  will 
heighten  the  wish  and  clear  its  path  to  its  object. 

Obvious  as  is  the  truth  here  presented,  it  seems 
in  some  degree  to  have  escaped  the  attention  of  my 
critics.  After  showing  that  the  grade  of  scholarship 
at  Harvard  steadily  rises,  that  our  students  become 
more  decorous  and  their  methods  of  work  less  child- 
ish, I  stated  that,  under  an  extremely  loose  mode 
of  regulating  attendance  five  sixths  of  the  exercises 
were  attended  by  all  our  men,  worst  and  best,  sick 
and  well,  most  reckless  and  most  discreet.  Few  por- 
tions of  my  obnoxious  paper  have  occasioned  a  louder 
outcry.  I  am  told  of  a  neighboring  college  where 
the  benches  show  but  three  per  cent  of  absentees. 
I  wonder  what  the  percentage  is  in  Charlestown 
State  Prison.  Nobody  doubts  that  attendance  will 
be  closer  if  compelled.  But  the  interesting  question, 
still  remains,  "  Are  students  by  such  means  learning 
habits  of  spontaneous  regularity?"  This  question 
can  be  answered  only  when  the  concealing  restraint 
is  removed.  It  has  been  removed  at  Harvard,  — 
in  my  judgment  too  largely  removed,  —  and  the 
great  body  of  our  students  is  seen  to  desire  learning 
and  to  desire  it  all  the  time.  Is  it  certain  that  the 
students  of  other  colleges,  if  left  with  little  or  no 
restraint,  would  show  a  better  record?  The  point 
of  fidelity  and  regularity,  it  is  said,  is  of  supreme 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        261 

importance.  So  it  is.  But  fidelity  and  regularity  in 
study,  not  in  attending  recitations.  If  ever  the  Har- 
vard system  is  perfected,  so  that  students  here  are 
as  eager  for  knowledge  as  the  best  class  of  German 
university  men,  I  do  not  believe  we  shall  see  a  lower 
rate  of  absence ;  only  then,  each  absence  will  be  used, 
as  it  is  not  at  present,  for  a  studious  purpose.  The 
modern  teacher  stimulates  private  reading,  exacts 
theses,  directs  work  in  libraries.  Pupils  engaged  in 
these  things  are  not  dependent  on  recitations  as  text- 
book schoolboys  are.  The  grade  of  higher  education 
cannot  rise  much  so  long  as  the  present  extreme 
stress  is  laid  on  appearance  in  the  class-room. 

In  saying  this  I  would  not  be  understood  to  de- 
fend the  method  of  dealing  with  absences  which  has 
for  some  years  been  practised  at  Harvard.  I  think 
the  method  bad.  I  have  always  thought  it  so,  and 
have  steadily  favored  a  different  system.  The  be- 
havior of  our  students  under  a  regulation  so  loose 
seems  to  me  a  striking  testimony  to  the  scholarly  spirit 
prevalent  here.  As  such  I  mentioned  it  in  my  first 
paper,  and  as  such  I  would  again  call  attention  to  it. 
But  I  am  not  satisfied  with  the  present  good  results. 
I  want  to  impress  on  every  student  that  absence  from 
the  class-room  can  be  justified  by  nothing  short  of 
illness  or  a  scholarly  purpose.  For  a  gainful  purpose 
the  merchant  is  occasionally  absent  from  his  office; 
for  a  gainful  purpose  a  scholar  of  mine  may  omit  a 


262          NECESSARY  LIMITATIONS 

recitation.  But  Smith  can  be  absent  profitably  when 
Brown  would  meet  with  loss.  I  accordingly  object 
to  methods  of  limiting  absence  which  exact  the  same 
numerical  regularity  of  all.  College  records  may  look 
clean,  yet  students  be  learning  little  about  duty. 
Limitation,  in  my  judgment,  should  be  so  adjusted 
as  to  strengthen  the  man's  personal  adhesion  to 
plans  of  daily  study.  Such  limitations  cannot  be 
fixed  by  statute  and  worked  by  a  single  clerk.  Moral 
discipline  is  not  a  thing  to  be  supplied  by  wholesale. 
Professors  must  be  individually  charged  with  the 
oversight  of  their  men.  I  would  have  excuses  for 
occasional  absence  made  to  the  instructor,  and  I 
should  expect  him  to  count  it  a  part  of  his  work  to 
see  that  the  better  purposes  of  his  scholars  did  not 
grow  feeble.  A  professor  who  exercised  such  super- 
visory power  slackly  would  make  his  course  the 
resort  of  the  indolent;  one  who  was  over-stringent 
would  see  himself  deserted  by  indolent  and  earnest 
alike.  My  rule  would  be  that  no  student  be  allowed 
to  present  himself  at  an  examination  who  could 
not  show  his  teacher's  certificate  that  his  attendance 
on  daily  work  was  satisfactory.  Traditions  in  this 
country  and  in  Germany  are  so  different  that  I 
should  have  confidence  in  a  method  working  well 
here  though  it  worked  ill  there.  At  any  rate,  when- 
ever it  fell  into  decay,  it  could  —  a  proviso  necessary 
in  all  moral  matters  —  be  readjusted.  A  rule  some- 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        263 

thing  like  this  the  Harvard  Faculty  has  recently 
adopted  by  voting  that  "  any  instructor,  with  the  ap- 
proval of  the  Dean,  may  at  any  time  exclude  from 
his  course  any  student  who  in  his  judgment  has 
neglected  the  work  of  the  course."  Probably  the 
amount  of  absence  which  has  hitherto  occurred  at 
Harvard  will  under  this  vote  diminish. 

Suppose,  then,  by  these  limitations  on  a  student's 
caprice  we  have  secured  his  persistence  in  outward 
endeavor,  still  one  thing  more  is  needed.  We  have 
brought  him  bodily  to  a  recitation  room;  but  his 
mind  must  be  there  too,  his  aroused  and  active  mind. 
Limitations  that  will  secure  this  slippery  part  of  the 
person  are  difficult  to  devise.  Nevertheless,  they  are 
worth  studying.  Their  object  is  plain.  They  are  to 
lead  a  student  to  do  something  every  day;  to  aid 
him  to  overcome  those  tendencies  to  procrastination, 
self-confidence,  and  passive  absorption  which  are 
the  regular  and  calculable  dangers  of  youth.  They 
are  to  teach  him  how  not  to  cram,  to  inspire  him  with 
respect  for  steady  effort,  and  to  enable  him  each  year 
to  find  such  effort  more  habitual  to  himself.  These 
are  hard  tasks.  The  old  education  tried  to  meet 
them  by  the  use  of  daily  recitations,  a  plan  not  with- 
out advantages.  The  new  education  is  preserving 
the  valuable  features  of  recitations  by  adopting  and 
developing  the  Seminar.  But  recitations  pure  and 
simple  have  serious  drawbacks.  They  presuppose 


264          NECESSARY  LIMITATIONS 

a  text-book,  which,  while  it  brings  definiteness,  brings 
also  narrowness  of  view.  The  learner  masters  a  book, 
not  a  subject.  After-life  possesses  nothing  analogous 
to  the  text-book.  A  struggling  man  wins  what  he 
wants  from  many  books,  from  his  own  thought,  from 
frequent  consultations.  Why  should  not  a  student 
be  disciplined  in  the  ways  he  must  afterwards  em- 
ploy? Moreover,  recitations  have  the  disadvantage 
that  no  large  number  of  men  can  take  part  on  any 
single  day.  The  times  of  trial  either  become  amen- 
able to  reckoning,  or,  in  order  to  prevent  reckoning, 
a  teacher  must  resort  to  schemes  which  do  not  com- 
mend him  to  his  class.  Undoubtedly  in  recitation 
the  reciter  gains,  but  the  gains  of  the  rest  of  the  class 
are  small.  The  listeners  would  be  more  profited 
by  instruction.  An  hour  with  an  expert  should  carry 
students  forward ;  to  occupy  it  in  ascertaining  where 
they  now  stand  is  wasteful.  For  all  these  reasons 
there  has  been  of  late  years  a  strong  reaction  against 
recitations.  Lectures  have  been  introduced,  and  the 
time  formerly  spent  by  a  professor  in  hearing  boys 
is  now  spent  by  boys  in  hearing  a  professor.  Plainly 
in  this  there  is  a  gain,  but  a  gain  which  needs  careful 
limitation  if  the  student's  persistence  in  work  is  to 
be  retained.  A  pure  lecture  system  is  a  broad  road 
to  ignorance.  Students  are  entertained  or  bored, 
but  at  the  end  of  a  month  they  know  little  more  than 
at  the  beginning.  Lectures  always  seem  to  me  an 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM       265 

inheritance  from  the  days  when  books  were  not. 
Learning  —  how  often  must  it  be  said !  —  is  not 
acceptance;  it  is  criticism,  it  is  attack,  it  is  doing. 
An  active  element  is  everywhere  involved  in  it.  Per- 
sonal sanction  is  wanted  for  every  step.  One  who 
will  grow  wise  must  perform  processes  himself,  not 
sit  at  ease  and  behold  another's  performance. 

These  simple  truths  are  now  tolerably  understood 
at  Harvard.  There  remain  in  the  college  few  courses 
of  pure  recitations  or  of  pure  lectures.  I  wish  all  were 
forbidden  by  statute.  In  almost  all  courses,  in  one 
way  or  another,  frequent  opportunity  is  given  the 
student  to  show  what  he  is  doing.  In  some,  especially 
in  elementary  courses,  lectures  run  parallel  with  a 
text-book.  In  some,  theses,  that  is,  written  discussions, 
are  exacted  monthly,  half-yearly,  annually,  in  addi- 
tion to  examinations.  In  some,  examinations  are 
frequent.  In  some,  a  daily  question,  to  be  answered 
in  writing  on  the  spot,  is  offered  to  the  whole  class. 
Often,  especially  in  philosophical  subjects,  the  hour 
is  occupied  with  debate  between  officer  and  students. 
More  and  more,  physical  subjects  are  taught  by  the 
laboratory,  linguistic  and  historical  by  the  library. 
In  a  living  university  a  great  variety  of  methods 
spring  up,  according  to  the  nature  of  the  subject  and 
the  personality  of  the  teacher.  Variety  should  exist. 
In  constantly  diversified  ways  each  student  should 
be  assured  that  he  is  expected  to  be  doing  something 


266          NECESSARY  LIMITATIONS 

all  the  time,  and  that  somebody  besides  himself 
knows  what  he  is  doing.  As  yet  this  assurance  is  not 
attained ;  we  can  only  claim  to  be  working  toward  it. 
Every  year  we  discover  some  fresh  limitation  which 
will  make  persistence  more  natural,  neglect  more 
strange.  I  believe  study  at  Harvard  is  to-day  more 
interested,  energetic,  and  persistent  than  it  has  ever 
been  before.  But  that  is  no  ground  for  satisfaction. 
A  powerful  college  must  forever  be  dissatisfied.  Each 
year  it  must  address  itself  anew  to  strengthening  the 
tenacity  of  its  students  in  their  zeal  for  knowledge. 

By  the  side  of  these  larger  limitations  in  the  interest 
of  persistency,  it  may  be  well  to  mention  one  or  two 
examples  of  smaller  ones  which  have  the  same  end 
in  view.  By  some  provision  it  must  be  made  diffi- 
cult to  withdraw  from  a  study  once  chosen.  Choice 
should  be  deliberate  and  then  be  final.  It  probably 
will  not  be  deliberate  unless  it  is  understood  to  be 
final.  A  few  weeks  may  be  allowed  for  an  inspection 
of  a  chosen  course,  but  at  the  close  of  the  first  month's 
teaching  the  Harvard  Faculty  tie  up  their  students 
and  allow  change  only  on  petition  and  for  the  most 
convincing  cause.  An  elective  college  which  did  not 
make  changes  of  electives  difficult  would  be  an  engine 
for  discouraging  intentionality  and  persistence. 

I  incline  to  think,  too,  that  a  regulation  forbidding 
elementary  courses  in  the  later  years  would  render 
our  education  more  coherent.  In  this  matter  elective 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        267 

colleges  have  an  opportunity  which  prescribed  ones 
miss.  In  order  to  be  fair  to  all  the  sciences,  college 
faculties  are  obliged  to  scatter  fragments  of  them 
throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  prescribed 
curricula.  Twenty-five  years  ago  every  Harvard 
man  waited  till  his  senior  year  before  beginning 
philosophy,  acoustics,  history,  and  political  economy. 
To-day  the  fourteen  other  New  England  colleges, 
most  of  whom,  like  the  Harvard  of  twenty-five  years 
ago,  offer  a  certain  number  of  elective  studies,  still 
show  senior  years  largely  occupied  with  elementary 
studies.  Five  forbid  philosophy  before  the  senior 
year;  eight,  political  economy;  two,  history;  six, 
geology.  Out  of  the  seven  colleges  which  offer  some 
one  of  the  eastern  languages,  all  except  Harvard 
oblige  the  alphabet  to  be  learned  in  the  senior  year. 
Of  the  six  which  offer  Italian  or  Spanish,  Harvard 
alone  permits  a  beginning  to  be  made  before  the  junior 
year,  while  two  take  up  these  languages  for  the  first 
time  in  the  senior  year.  In  three  New  England 
colleges  German  cannot  be  begun  till  the  junior  year. 
In  a  majority,  a  physical  subject  is  begun  in  the  junior 
and  another  in  the  senior  year.  At  Yale  nobody  but 
a  senior  can  study  chemistry.  Such  postponement, 
and  by  consequence  such  fragmentary  work,  may  be 
necessary  where  early  college  years  are  crowded  with 
prescribed  studies.  But  an  elective  system  can  em- 
ploy its  later  years  to  better  advantage.  It  can  bring 


268          NECESSARY  LIMITATIONS 

to  a  mature  understanding  the  interests  which  fresh- 
men and  sophomores  have  already  acquired.  Ele- 
mentary studies  are  not  maturing  studies;  they  do 
not  make  the  fibre  of  a  student  firm.  To  studies  of 
a  solidifying  sort  the  last  years  should  be  devoted. 
I  should  like  to  forbid  seniors  to  take  any  elemen- 
tary study  whatever,  and  to  forbid  juniors  all  ex- 
cept philosophy,  political  economy,  history,  fine  arts, 
Sanskrit,  Hebrew,  and  law.  Under  such  a  rule  we 
should  graduate  more  men  who  would  be  first  rate 
at  something;  and  a  man  who  is  first  rate  at  some- 
thing is  generally  pretty  good  at  anything. 

Such,  then,  are  a  few  examples  of  the  ways  in 
which  choice  may  be  limited  so  as  to  become  strong. 
They  are  but  examples,  intended  merely  to  draw 
attention  to  the  three  kinds  of  limitation  still  pos- 
sible. Humble  ways  they  may  seem,  not  particu- 
larly interesting  to  hear  about ;  business  methods  one 
might  call  them.  But  by  means  of  these  and  such  as 
these  the  young  scholar  becomes  clearer  in  intention, 
larger  in  information,  hardier  in  persistence.  In 
urging  such  means  I  shall  be  seen  to  be  no  thick  and 
thin  advocate  of  election.  That  I  have  never  been. 
Originally  a  doubter,  I  have  come  to  regard  the 
elective  system,  that  is,  election  under  such  limita- 
tions as  I  have  described,  as  the  safest  —  indeed  as 
the  only  possible  —  course  which  education  can  now 
take.  I  advocate  it  heartily  as  a  system  which  need 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        269 

not  carry  us  too  fast  or  too  far  in  any  one  direction, 
as  a  system  so  inherently  flexible  that  its  own  great 
virtues  readily  unite  with  those  of  an  alien  type. 
Under  its  sheltering  charge  the  worthier  advantages 
of  both  grouped  and  prescribed  systems  are  attain- 
able. I  proclaim  it,  therefore,  not  as  a  popular  cry 
nor  as  an  educational  panacea,  but  as  a  sober  oppor- 
tunity for  moral  and  intellectual  training.  Limited 
as  it  is  at  Harvard,  I  see  that  it  works  admirably  with 
the  studious,  stimulatingly  with  those  of  weaker  will, 
not  unendurably  with  the  depraved.  These  are  great 
results.  They  cannot  be  set  aside  by  calling  them 
the  outcome  of  "individualism."  In  a  certain  sense 
they  are.  But  "  individualism  "  is  an  uncertain  term. 
In  every  one  of  us  there  is  a  contemptible  individual- 
ity, grounded  in  what  is  ephemeral  and  capriciously 
personal.  Systematic  election,  as  I  have  shown,  puts 
limitations  on  this.  But  there  is  a  noble  individuality 
which  should  be  the  object  of  our  fostering  care. 
Nothing  that  lends  it  strength  and  fineness  can  be 
counted  trivial.  To  form  a  true  individuality  is, 
indeed,  the  ideal  of  the  elective  system.  Let  me 
briefly  sketch  my  conception  of  that  ideal. 

George  Herbert,  praising  God  for  the  physical 
world  which  He  has  made,  says  that  in  it  "  all  things 
have  their  will,  yet  none  but  thine."  Such  a  free 
harmony  between  thinking  man  and  a  Lord  of  his 
thought  it  is  the  office  of  education  to  bring  about. 


270          NECESSARY  LIMITATIONS 

At  the  start  it  does  not  exist.  The  child  is  aware  of 
his  own  will,  and  he  is  aware  of  little  else.  He  im- 
agines that  one  pleasing  fancy  may  be  willed  as  easily 
as  another.  As  he  matures,  he  discovers  that  his 
will  is  effective  when  it  accords  with  the  make  of  the 
world  and  ineffective  when  it  does  not.  This  dis- 
covery, bringing  as  it  does  increased  respect  for  the 
make  of  the  world  and  even  for  its  Maker,  degrades 
or  ennobles  according  as  the  facts  of  the  world  are 
now  viewed  as  restrictive  finalities  or  as  an  appara- 
tus for  larger  self-expression.  Seeing  the  power  of  that 
which  is  not  himself,  a  man  may  become  passively 
receptive,  and  say,  "Then  I  am  to  have  no  will  of 
my  own  " ;  or  he  may  become  newly  energetic,  know- 
ing that  though  he  can  have  no  will  of  his  separate 
own,  yet  all  the  power  of  God  is  his  if  he  will  but  un- 
derstand. A  man  of  the  latter  sort  is  spiritually  edu- 
cated. Much  still  remains  to  be  done  in  understand- 
ing special  laws ;  and  with  each  fresh  understanding, 
a  fresh  possibility  of  individual  life  is  disclosed. 
The  worth,  however,  of  the  whole  process  lies  in  the 
man's  honoring  his  own  will,  but  honoring  it  only  as 
it  grows  strong  through  accordance  with  the  will  of 
God. 

Now  into  our  colleges  comes  a  mixed  multitude 
made  up  of  all  the  three  classes  named :  the  child- 
ish, who  imagine  they  can  will  anything ;  the  docile, 
so  passive  in  the  presence  of  an  ordered  world  that 


OF  THE  ELECTIVE  SYSTEM        271 

they  have  little  individual  will  left;  the  spiritually- 
minded  or  original,  who  with  strong  interests  of  their 
own  seek  to  develop  these  through  living  contact  with 
truths  which  they  have  not  made.  Our  educational 
modes  must  meet  them  all,  respecting  their  wills 
wherever  wise,  and  teaching  the  feeble  to  discrimi- 
nate fanciful  from  righteous  desires.  For  carrying 
forward  such  a  training  the  elective  system  seems  to 
me  to  have  peculiar  aptitudes.  What  I  have  called 
its  limitations  will  be  seen  to  be  spiritual  assistances. 
To  the  further  invention  of  such  there  is  no  end.  A 
watchful  patience  is  the  one  great  requisite,  patience 
in  directors,  instructed  criticism  on  the  part  of  the 
public,  and  a  brave  expression  of  confidence  when 
confidence  is  seen  to  have  been  earned. 


XI 

COLLEGE  EXPENSES1 

THE  subject  of  college  expenses  has  been  much 
debated  lately.  At  our  Commencement  dinner,  a  year 
ago,  attention  was  called  to  it.  Our  chairman  on  that 
occasion  justly  insisted  that  the  ideal  of  the  Univer- 
sity should  be  plain  living  and  high  thinking.  And 
certainly  there  is  apt  to  be  something  vulgar,  as  well 
as  vicious,  in  the  man  of  books  who  turns  away  from 
winning  intellectual  wealth  and  indulges  in  tawdry 
extravagance.  Yet  every  friend  of  Harvard  is  obliged 
to  acknowledge  with  shame  that  the  loose  spender 
has  a  lodging  in  our  yard.  No  clear-sighted  observer 
can  draw  near  and  not  perceive  that  in  all  his  native 
hideousness  the  man  of  the  club  and  the  dog-cart  is 
among  us. 

I  do  not  think  this  strange.  In  fact,  I  regard  it  as 
inevitable.  It  is  necessarily  connected  with  our  growth. 
The  old  College  we  might  compare,  for  moral  and 
intellectual  range,  with  a  country  village;  our  pre- 
sent University  is  a  great  city,  and  we  must  accept 

1  Delivered  in  Memorial  Hall,  Cambridge,  June  29, 1887.  Since 
this  date  the  scale  of  expenditure  in  college,  as  elsewhere,  has  been 
steadily  rising. 


COLLEGE  EXPENSES  273 

the  many-sided  life,  the  temptations  as  well  as  the 
opportunities,  of  the  great  city.  Probably  nowhere 
on  this  planet  can  a  thousand  young  men  be  found, 
between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and  twenty-four,  who 
will  not  show  examples  of  the  heedless,  the  temptable, 
and  the  depraved.  Let  us  not,  then,  shrink  from 
acknowledging  the  ugly  fact;  extravagance  is  here, 
—  shameless,  coarse  extravagance.  I  hope  nothing 
I  say  may  diminish  our  sense  of  its  indecency.  But 
how  widespread  is  it  ?  We  must  not  lose  sight  of  that 
important  question.  How  largely  does  it  infect  the 
College  ?  Are  many  students  large  spenders  ?  Must 
a  man  of  moderate  means  on  coming  here  be  put  to 
shame?  Will  he  find  himself  a  disparaged  person, 
out  of  accord  with  the  spirit  of  the  place,  and  un- 
able to  obtain  its  characteristic  advantages?  These 
are  the  weighty  questions.  Only  after  we  have  an- 
swered them  can  we  determine  the  moral  soundness 
of  the  University.  Wherever  we  go  on  earth  we  shall 
find  the  insolently  rich  and  wasteful.  They,  like  the 
poor,  are  always  with  us ;  their  qualities  are  cheap. 
But  what  we  want  to  know  is  whether,  side  by  side 
with  them,  we  have  a  company  of  sober  men,  who 
care  for  higher  things  and  who  spend  no  more  than 
the  higher  things  require.  Facts  of  proportion  and 
degree  form  the  firm  basis  of  general  judgments, 
and  yet  I  am  aware  that  these  are  the  hardest  facts  to 
obtain.  Hitherto  nobody  has  known  any  such  facts 


274  COLLEGE  EXPENSES 

in  regard  to  the  expenses  of  Harvard.  Assertions 
about  the  style  of  living  here  have  only  expressed 
the  personal  opinion  of  the  assertor,  or  at  best  have 
been  generalizations  from  a  few  chance  cases.  No 
systematic  evidence  on  the  subject  has  existed.  It 
is  time  it  did  exist,  and  I  have  made  an  attempt  to 
obtain  it.  To  each  member  of  the  graduating  class 
I  sent  a  circular,  a  month  ago,  asking  if  he  would 
be  willing  to  tell  me  in  confidence  what  his  college 
course  had  cost.  I  desired  him  to  include  in  his  re- 
port all  expenses  whatever.  He  was  to  state  not  merely 
his  tuition,  board,  and  lodging,  but  also  his  furniture, 
books,  clothing,  travel,  subscriptions,  and  amuse- 
ments ;  in  fact,  every  dollar  he  had  spent  during  the 
four  years  of  his  study,  except  his  charges  for  Class 
Day  and  the  summer  vacations ;  these  times  varying  so 
widely,  it  seemed  to  me,  in  their  cost  to  different  men 
that  they  could  not  instructively  enter  into  an  average. 
The  reply  has  been  very  large  indeed.  To  my 
surprise,  out  of  a  class  of  two  hundred  and  thirty- 
five  men  actually  in  residence,  two  hundred  and 
nineteen,  or  ninety-three  per  cent,  have  sent  reports. 
Am  I  wrong  in  supposing  that  this  very  general 
"readiness  to  tell"  is  itself  a  sign  of  upright  con- 
duct ?  But  I  would  not  exaggerate  the  worth  of  the 
returns.  They  cannot  be  trusted  to  a  figure.  It  has 
not  been  possible  to  obtain  itemized  statements. 
College  boys,  like  other  people,  do  not  always  keep 


COLLEGE  EXPENSES  275 

accounts.  But  I  requested  my  correspondents,  in 
cases  of  uncertainty,  always  to  name  the  larger  figure ; 
and  though  those  who  have  lived  freely  probably 
have  less  knowledge  about  what  they  have  spent 
than  have  their  economical  classmates,  I  think  we 
may  accept  their  reports  in  the  rough.  We  can 
be  reasonably  sure  whether  they  have  exceeded  or 
fallen  below  a  certain  medium  line,  and  for  purposes 
more  precise  I  shall  not  attempt  to  use  them.  Any- 
thing like  minute  accuracy  I  wish  expressly  to  re- 
pudiate. The  evidence  I  offer  only  claims  to  be  the 
best  that  exists  at  present;  and  I  must  say  that  the 
astonishing  frankness  and  fulness  of  the  reports  give 
me  strong  personal  assurance  of  the  good  faith  of 
the  writers.  In  these  letters  I  have  seen  a  vivid 
picture  of  the  struggles,  the  hopes,  the  errors,  and  the 
repentings  of  the  manly  young  lives  that  surround  me. 
What,  then,  are  the  results?  Out  of  the  two 
hundred  and  nineteen  men  who  have  replied,  fifty- 
six,  or  about  one  quarter  of  the  class,  have  spent 
between  $450  and  $650  in  each  of  the  four  years 
of  residence;  fifty -four,  or  again  about  a  quarter, 
have  spent  between  $650  and  $975;  but  sixty-one, 
hardly  more  than  a  quarter,  have  spent  a  larger 
sum  than  $1200.  The  smallest  amount  in  any  one 
year  was  $400 ;  the  largest,  $4000.* 

1  Perhaps  I  had  better  mention  the  adjustments  by  which  these 
results  have  been  reached.  When  a  man  has  been  in  college  during 


276  COLLEGE  EXPENSES 

I  ask  you  to  consider  these  figures.  They  are  not 
startling,  but  they  seem  to  me  to  indicate  that  a 
soberly  sensible  average  of  expense  prevails  at  Har- 
vard. They  suggest  that  students  are,  after  all, 
merely  young  men  temporarily  removed  from  homes, 
and  that  they  are  practising  here,  without  violent 
change,  the  habits  which  the  home  has  formed. 
Those  who  have  been  accustomed  to  large  expen- 
diture spend  freely  here ;  those  of  quiet  and  consid- 
erate habits  do  not  lightly  abandon  them.  I  doubt 
if  during  the  last  twenty-five  years  luxury  has  in- 
creased in  the  colleges  as  rapidly  as  it  has  in  the 
outside  world. 

There  is  no  reason,  either,  to  suppose  that  the 
addition  of  the  sixteen  men  who  have  not  replied 
would  appreciably  affect  my  results.  The  standing 
of  these  men  on  the  last  annual  rank-list  was  sixty- 
only  the  closing  years  of  the  course,  I  assume  that  he  would  have 
lived  at  the  same  rate  had  he  been  here  throughout  it.  I  have 
added  $150  for  persons  who  board  at  home,  and  another  hundred 
for  those  who  lodge  there.  Though  I  asked  to  have  the  expenses  of 
Class  Day  and  the  summer  vacations  omitted,  in  some  instances 
I  have  reason  to  suspect  that  they  are  included;  but  of  course  I 
have  been  obliged  to  let  the  error  remain,  and  I  have  never  de- 
ducted the  money  which  students  often  say  they  expect  to  recover 
at  graduation  by  the  sale  of  furniture  and  other  goods.  There 
is  a  noticeable  tendency  to  larger  outlay  as  the  years  advance. 
Some  students  attribute  this  to  the  greater  cost  of  the  studies  of 
the  later  years,  to  the  more  expensive  books  and  the  laboratory 
charges;  others,  to  societies  and  subscriptions;  others,  to  enlarged 
acquaintance  with  opportunities  for  spending. 


COLLEGE  EXPENSES  277 

eight  per  cent.  They  seem  to  me  average  persons. 
Their  silence  I  attribute  to  mistakes  of  the  mail,  to 
business,  to  neglect,  or  to  the  very  natural  disin- 
clination to  disclose  their  private  affairs.  To  refuse 
to  answer  my  intrusive  questions,  or  even  to  acknow- 
ledge that  college  days  were  costly,  is  not  in  itself 
evidence  of  wantonness.  Small  spenders  are  usually 
high  scholars;  but  this  is  by  no  means  always  the 
case.  In  the  most  economical  group  I  found  seven 
who  did  not  reach  a  rank  of  seventy  per  cent,  last 
year;  whereas  out  of  the  seven  largest  spenders  of 
the  class  three  passed  seventy-five  per  cent.  It 
would  be  rash  to  conclude  that  large  sums  cannot 
be  honorably  employed. 

But  it  may  seem  that  the  smallest  of  the  sums 
named  is  large  for  a  poor  man.  It  may  be  believed 
that  even  after  restraint  and  wisdom  are  used,  Har- 
vard remains  the  college  of  the  rich.  There  is  much 
in  our  circumstances  to  make  it  so.  An  excellent 
education  is  unquestionably  a  costly  thing,  and  to 
live  where  many  men  wish  to  live  calls  for  a  good 
deal  of  money.  We  have,  it  is  true,  this  splendid 
hall,  which  lessens  our  expense  for  food  and  encom- 
passes us  with  ennobling  influences;  but  it  costs 
$150  a  year  to  board  here.  Our  tuition  bill  each  year 
is  $150.  The  University  owns  450  rooms;  but  not 
a  third  of  them  rent  for  less  than  $150  a  year,  the 
average  rent  being  $146.  These  large  charges  for 


278  COLLEGE  EXPENSES 

tuition  and  room-rent  are  made  necessary  by  the 
smallness  of  the  general  fund  which  pays  the  run- 
ning expenses  of  the  college.  Very  few  of  the  pro- 
fessorships are  endowed,  and  so  the  tuition-fee  and 
room-rent  must  mainly  carry  the  expenses  of  teach- 
ing. 

Still,  there  is  another  side  to  the  story.  Thus  far 
I  have  figured  out  the  expenses,  and  have  said 
nothing  about  the  means  of  meeting  them.  Perhaps 
to  get  the  advantages  of  Harvard  a  student  may 
need  to  spend  largely;  but  a  certain  circumstance 
enables  him  to  do  so,  —  I  mean  the  matchless 
benevolence  of  those  who  have  preceded  us  here. 
The  great  sums  intrusted  to  us  for  distribution  in 
prizes,  loan-funds,  and  scholarships  make  it  pos- 
sible for  our  students  to  offset  the  cost  of  their  edu- 
cation to  such  a  degree  that  the  net  output  of  a  poor 
boy  here  is  probably  less  than  in  most  New  England 
colleges.  At  any  rate,  I  have  asked  a  large  number 
of  poor  students  why  they  came  to  expensive  Har- 
vard, and  again  and  again  I  have  received  the  reply: 
"  I  could  not  afford  to  go  elsewhere." 

The  magnitude  of  this  beneficiary  aid  I  doubt 
if  people  generally  understand,  and  I  have  accord- 
ingly taken  pains  to  ascertain  what  was  the  amount 
given  away  this  year.  I  find  that  to  undergraduates 
alone  it  was  $36,000;  to  members  of  the  graduate 
department,  $11,000;  and  to  the  professional  schools 


COLLEGE  EXPENSES  279 

$6000 :  making  in  a  single  year  a  total  of  assistance 
to  students  of  the  University  of  more  than  $53,000. 
Next  year  this  enormous  sum  will  be  increased 
$13,000  by  the  munificent  bequest  of  Mr.  Price 
Greenleaf.  Fully  to  estimate  the  favorable  posi- 
tion of  the  poor  man  at  Harvard,  we  should  take 
into  account  also  the  great  opportunities  for  earning 
money  through  private  tuition,  through  innumer- 
able avenues  of  trade,  and  through  writing  for  the 
public  press.  A  large  number  of  my  correspondents 
tell  of  money  earned  outside  their  scholarships.1 

These  immense  aids  provided  for  our  students 
maintain  a  balance  of  conditions  here,  and  enable 
even  the  poorest  to  obtain  a  Harvard  education.  And 
what  an  education  it  is;  how  broad  and  deep  and 
individually  stimulating,  —  the  most  truly  American 
education  which  the  continent  affords!  But  I  have 
no  need  to  eulogize  it.  It  has  already  entered  into 
the  very  structure  of  you  who  listen.  Let  me  rather 
close  with  two  pieces  of  advice. 

The  first  shall  be  to  parents.  Give  your  son  a 
competent  allowance  when  you  send  him  to  Har- 
vard, and  oblige  him  to  stick  to  it.  To  learn  cal- 

1  For  the  sake  of  lucidity,  I  keep  the  expense  account  and  the 
income  account  distinct.  For  example,  a  man  reports  that  he  has 
spent  $700  a  year,  winning  each  year  a  scholarship  of  $200,  and 
earning  by  tutoring  $100,  and  $50  by  some  other  means.  The 
balance  against  him  is  only  $350  a  year;  but  I  have  included  him 
in  the  group  of  $700  spenders. 


280  COLLEGE  EXPENSES 

culation  will  contribute  as  much  to  his  equipment 
for  life  as  any  elective  study  he  can  pursue;  and 
calculation  he  will  not  learn  unless,  after  a  little 
experience,  you  tell  him  precisely  what  sum  he  is  to 
receive.  If  in  a  haphazard  way  you  pour  $2000  into 
his  pocket,  then  in  an  equally  haphazard  way  $2000 
will  come  out.  Whatever  extravagance  exists  at 
Harvard  to-day  is  the  fault  of  you  foolish  parents. 
The  college,  as  a  college,  cannot  stop  extravagance. 
It  cannot  take  away  a  thousand  dollars  from  your 
son  and  tell  him  —  what  would  be  perfectly  true  — 
that  he  will  be  better  off  with  the  remaining  thou- 
sand ;  that  you  must  do  yourselves.  And  if  you  ask, 
"What  is  a  competent  allowance?"  out  of  what 
my  correspondents  say  I  will  frame  you  five  an- 
swers. If  your  son  is  something  of  an  artist  in  econ- 
omy, he  may  live  here  on  $600,  or  less;  he  will  re- 
quire to  be  an  artist  to  accomplish  it.  If  he  will  live 
closely,  carefully,  yet  with  full  regard  to  all  that  is 
required,  he  may  do  so,  with  nearly  half  his  class,  on 
not  more  than  $800.  If  you  wish  him  to  live  at  ease 
and  to  obtain  the  many  refinements  which  money 
will  purchase,  give  him  $1000.  Indeed,  if  I  were  a 
very  rich  man,  and  had  a  boy  whose  character  I 
could  trust,  so  that  I  could  be  sure  that  all  he  laid 
out  would  be  laid  out  wisely,  I  might  add  $200 
more,  for  the  purchase  of  books  and  other  appli- 
ances of  delicate  culture.  But  I  should  be  sure  that 


COLLEGE  EXPENSES  281 

every  dollar  I  gave  him  over  $1200  would  be  a  dollar 
of  danger. 

Let  my  second  piece  of  advice  be  to  all  of  you 
graduates.  When  you  meet  a  poor  boy,  do  not  rashly 
urge  him  to  come  to  Harvard.  Estimate  carefully 
his  powers.  If  he  is  a  good  boy,  —  docile,  worthy, 
commonplace,  —  advise  him  to  go  somewhere  else. 
Here  he  will  find  himself  borne  down  by  large  ex- 
pense and  by  the  crowd  who  stand  above  him.  But 
whenever  you  encounter  a  poor  boy  of  eager,  ag- 
gressive mind,  a  youth  of  energy,  one  capable  of  feel- 
ing the  enjoyment  of  struggling  with  a  multitude  and 
of  making  his  merit  known,  say  to  him  that  Har- 
vard College  is  expressly  constituted  for  such  as  he. 
Here  he  will  find  the  largest  provision  for  his  needs 
and  the  clearest  field  for  his  talents.  Money  is  a 
power  everywhere.  It  is  a  power  here;  but  a  power 
of  far  more  restricted  scope  than  in  the  world  at 
large.  In  this  magnificent  hall  rich  and  poor  dine 
together  daily.  At  the  Union  they  debate  together. 
At  the  clubs  which  foster  special  interests,  —  the 
Finance  Club,  the  Philological  Club,  the  Philosophi- 
cal Club,  the  French  Club,  the  Signet,  and  the  O.  K. 
—  considerations  of  money  have  no  place.  If  the 
poor  man  is  a  man  of  muscle,  the  athletic  organiza- 
tions will  welcome  him;  if  a  man  skilled  in  words, 
he  will  be  made  an  editor  of  the  college  papers ;  and 
if  he  has  the  powers  that  fit  him  for  such  a  place,  the 


282  COLLEGE  EXPENSES 

whole  body  of  his  classmates  will  elect  him  Orator, 
Ivy  Orator,  Odist,  or  Poet,  without  the  slightest  re- 
gard to  whether  his  purse  is  full  or  empty.  The  poor 
man,  it  is  true,  will  not  be  chosen  for  ornamental 
offices,  for  positions  which  imply  an  acquaintance 
with  etiquette,  and  he  may  be  cut  off  from  intimacy 
with  the  frequenters  of  the  ballroom  and  the  opera ; 
but  as  he  will  probably  have  little  time  or  taste  for 
these  things,  his  loss  will  not  be  large.  In  short,  if  he 
has  anything  in  him,  —  has  he  scholarship,  brains, 
wit,  companionability,  stout  moral  purpose,  or  quiet 
Christian  character,  —  his  qualities  will  find  as 
prompt  a  recognition  at  Harvard  as  anywhere  on 
earth. 


XII 

A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME 

ON  the  14th  of  February,  1883,  Evangelinus  Apos- 
tolides  Sophocles,  Professor  of  Ancient,  Byzantine, 
and  Modern  Greek  in  Harvard  University,  died  at 
Cambridge,  in  the  corner  room  of  Holworthy  Hall 
which  he  had  occupied  for  nearly  forty  years.  A 
past  generation  of  American  schoolboys  knew  him 
gratefully  as  the  author  of  a  compact  and  lucid  Greek 
grammar.  College  students  —  probably  as  large  a 
number  as  ever  sat  under  an  American  professor  — 
were  introduced  by  him  to  the  poets  and  historians 
of  Greece.  Scholars  of  a  riper  growth,  both  in  Eu- 
rope and  America,  have  wondered  at  the  precision 
and  loving  diligence  with  which,  in  his  dictionary 
of  the  later  and  Bzyantine  Greek,  he  assessed  the 
corrupt  literary  coinage  of  his  native  land.  His  brief 
contributions  to  the  Nation  and  other  journals 
were  always  noticeable  for  exact  knowledge  and 
scrupulous  literary  honesty.  As  a  great  scholar,  there- 
fore, and  one  who  through  a  long  life  labored  to 
beget  scholarship  in  others,  Sophocles  deserves  well 
of  America.  At  a  time  when  Greek  was  usually 
studied  as  the  schoolboy  studies  it,  this  strange  Greek 


284    A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME 

came  among  us,  connected  himself  with  our  oldest 
university,  and  showed  us  an  example  of  encyclo- 
paedic learning,  and  such  familiar  and  living  acquaint- 
ance with  Homer  and  ^Eschylus  —  yes,  even  with 
Polybius,  Lucian,  and  Athenaeus — as  we  have  with 
Tennyson  and  Shakespeare  and  Burke  and  Macau- 
lay.  More  than  this,  he  showed  us  how  such  learn- 
ing is  gathered.  To  a  dozen  generations  of  impres- 
sible college  students  he  presented  a  type  of  an 
austere  life  directed  to  serene  ends,  a  life  sufficient 
for  itself  and  filled  with  a  never-hastening  diligence 
which  issued  in  vast  mental  stores. 

It  is  not,  however,  the  purpose  of  this  paper  to  trace 
the  influence  over  American  scholarship  of  this  hardly 
domesticated  wise  man  of  the  East.  Nor  will  there 
be  any  attempt  to  narrate  the  outward  events  of 
his  life.  These  were  never  fully  known;  and  could 
they  be  discovered,  there  would  be  a  kind  of  impi- 
ety in  reporting  them.  Few  traits  were  so  charac- 
teristic of  him  as  his  wish  to  conceal  his  history.  His 
motto  might  have  been  that  of  Epicurus  and  Des- 
cartes: "Well  hid  is  well  lived."  Yet  in  spite  of  his 
concealments,  perhaps  in  part  because  of  them,  few 
persons  connected  with  Harvard  have  ever  left  be- 
hind them  an  impression  of  such  massive  individu- 
ality. He  was  long  a  notable  figure  in  university  life, 
one  of  those  picturesque  characters  who  by  their 
very  being  give  impulse  to  aspiring  mortals  and  check 


A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME    285 

the  ever-encroaching  commonplace.  It  would  be  un- 
grateful to  allow  one  formerly  so  stimulating  and 
talked  about  to  fall  into  oblivion.  Now  that  a  decent 
interval  after  death  has  passed,  a  memorial  to  this 
unusual  man  may  be  reverently  set  up.  His  likeness 
may  be  drawn  by  a  fond  though  faithful  hand.  Or 
at  least  such  stories  about  him  may  be  kindly  put 
into  the  record  of  print  as  will  reflect  some  of  those 
rugged,  paradoxical,  witty,  and  benignant  aspects 
of  his  nature  which  marked  him  off  from  the  hum- 
drum herd  of  men. 

My  own  first  approach  to  Sophocles  was  at  the  end 
of  my  Junior  year  in  college.  It  was  necessary  for 
me  to  be  absent  from  his  afternoon  recitation.  In 
those  distant  days  absences  were  regarded  by  Har- 
vard law  as  luxuries,  and  a  small  fixed  quantity  of 
them,  a  sort  of  sailor's  grog,  was  credited  with  little 
charge  each  half-year  to  every  student.  I  was  al- 
ready nearing  the  limit  of  the  unenlargeable  eight, 
and  could  not  well  venture  to  add  another  to  my 
score.  It  seemed  safer  to  try  to  win  indulgence  from 
my  fierce-eyed  instructor.  Early  one  morning  I  went 
to  Sophocles's  room.  "Professor  Sophocles,"  I  said, 
"I  want  to  be  excused  from  attending  the  Greek 
recitation  this  afternoon."  "I  have  no  power  to 
excuse,"  uttered  in  the  gruffest  of  tones,  while  he 
looked  the  other  way,  "But  I  cannot  be  here.  I 
must  be  out  of  town  at  three  o'clock."  "I  have  no 


286    A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME 

power.  You  had  better  see  the  president."  Finding 
the  situation  desperate,  I  took  a  desperate  leap. 
"But  the  president  probably  would  not  allow  my 
excuse.  At  the  play  of  the  Hasty  Pudding  Club  to- 
night I  am  to  appear  as  leading  lady.  I  must  go  to 
Brookline  this  afternoon  and  have  my  sister  dress 
me."  No  muscle  of  the  stern  face  moved ;  but  he  rose, 
walked  to  a  table  where  his  class  lists  lay,  and,  taking 
up  a  pencil,  calmly  said : "  You  had  better  say  nothing 
to  the  president.  You  are  here  now.  I  will  mark  you 
so."  He  sniffed,  he  bowed,  and,  without  smile  or 
word  from  either  of  us,  I  left  the  room.  As  I  came 
to  know  Sophocles  afterwards,  I  found  that  in  this 
trivial  early  interview  I* had  come  upon  some  of  the 
most  distinctive  traits  of  his  character;  here  was  an 
epitome  of  his  brusquerie,  his  dignity,  his  whimsical 
logic,  and  his  kind  heart. 

Outwardly  he  was  always  brusque  and  repellent. 
A  certain  savagery  marked  his  very  face.  He  once 
observed  that,  in  introducing  a  character,  Homer  is 
apt  to  draw  attention  to  the  eye.  Certainly  in  himself 
this  was  the  feature  which  first  attracted  notice;  for 
his  eye  had  uncommon  alertness  and  intelligence. 
Those  who  knew  him  well  detected  in  it  a  hidden 
sweetness;  but  against  the  stranger  it  burned  and 
glared,  and  guarded  all  avenues  of  approach.  Startled 
it  was,  like  the  eye  of  a  wild  animal,  and  penetrating, 
"peering  through  the  portals  of  the  brain  like  the 


A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME    287 

brass  cannon."  Over  it  crouched  bushy  brows,  and 
all  around  the  great  head  bristled  white  hair,  on 
forehead,  cheeks,  and  lips,  so  that  little  flesh  re- 
mained visible,  and  the  life  was  settled  in  two  fiery 
spots.  This  concentration  of  expression  in  the  few 
elementary  features  of  shape,  hair,  and  eyes  made 
the  head  a  magnificent  subject  for  painting.  Rem- 
brandt should  have  painted  it.  But  he  would  never 
allow  a  portrait  of  himself  to  be  drawn.  Into  his  per- 
sonality strangers  must  not  intrude.  Venturing  once 
to  try  for  memoranda  of  his  face,  I  took  an  artist  to 
his  room.  The  courtesy  of  Sophocles  was  too  stately 
to  allow  him  to  turn  my  friend  away,  but  he  seated 
himself  in  a  shaded  window,  and  kept  his  head  in 
constant  motion.  When  my  frustrated  friend  had 
departed,  Sophocles  told  me,  though  without  direct 
reproach,  of  two  sketches  which  had  before  been 
surreptitiously  made,  —  one  by  the  pencil  of  a  stu- 
dent in  his  class,  another  in  oils  by  a  lady  who  had 
followed  him  on  the  street.  Toward  photography  his 
aversion  was  weaker;  perhaps  because  in  that  art  a 
human  being  less  openly  meddled  with  him. 

From  this  sense  of  personal  dignity,  which  made 
him  at  all  times  determined  to  keep  out  of  the  grasp 
of  others,  much  of  his  brusqueness  sprang.  On  the 
morning  after  he  returned  from  his  visit  to  Greece 
a  fellow  professor  saw  him  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
street,  and,  hastening  across,  greeted  him  warmly: 


288    A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME 

"  So  you  have  been  home,  Mr.  Sophocles ;  and  how 
did  you  find  your  mother  ?  "  "  She  was  up  an  apple- 
tree,"  said  Sophocles,  confining  himself  to  the  facts 
of  the  case.  A  boy  who  snowballed  him  on  the  street 
he  prosecuted  relentlessly,  and  he  could  not  be  ap- 
peased until  a  considerable  fine  was  imposed ;  but  he 
paid  the  fine  himself.  Many  a  bold  push  was  made 
to  ascertain  his  age ;  yet,  however  suddenly  the  ques- 
tion came,  or  however  craftily  one  crept  from  date  to 
date,  there  was  a  uniform  lack  of  success.  "I  see 
Allibone's  Dictionary  says  you  were  born  in  1805,"  a 
gentleman  remarked.  "Some  statements  have  been 
nearer,  and  some  have  been  farther  from  the  truth." 
One  day,  when  a  violent  attack  of  illness  fell  on  him, 
a  physician  was  called  for  diagnosis.  He  felt  the  pulse, 
he  examined  the  tongue,  he  heard  the  report  of  the 
symptoms,  then  suddenly  asked,  "How  old  are  you, 
Mr.  Sophocles?"  With  as  ready  presence  of  mind 
and  as  pretty  ingenuity  as  if  he  were  not  lying  at  the 
point  of  death,  Sophocles  answered:  "The  Arabs, 
Dr.  W.,  estimate  age  by  several  standards.  The  age 
of  Hassan,  the  porter,  is  reckoned  by  his  wrinkles; 
that  of  Abdallah,  the  physician,  by  the  lives  he  has 
saved;  that  of  Achmet,  the  sage,  by  his  wisdom. 
I,  all  my  life  a  scholar,  am  nearing  my  hundredth 
year."  To  those  who  had  once  come  close  to 
Sophocles  these  little  reserves,  never  asserted  with 
impatience,  were  characteristic  and  endearing.  I 


A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME    289 

happen  to  know  his  age ;   hot  irons  shall  not  draw 
it  from  me. 

Closely  connected  with  his  repellent  reserve  was 
the  stern  independence  of  his  modes  of  life.  In  his 
scheme,  little  things  were  kept  small  and  great  things 
large.  What  was  the  true  reading  in  a  passage  of 
Aristophanes,  what  the  usage  of  a  certain  word  in 
Byzantine  Greek,  —  these  were  matters  on  which  a 
man  might  well  reflect  and  labor.  But  of  what  con- 
sequence was  it  if  the  breakfast  was  slight  or  the  coat 
worn  ?  Accordingly,  a  single  room,  in  which  a  light 
was  seldom  seen,  sufficed  him  during  his  forty  years 
of  life  in  the  college  yard.  It  was  totally  bare  of  com- 
forts. It  contained  no  carpet,  no  stuffed  furniture, 
no  bookcase.  The  college  library  furnished  the  vol- 
umes he  was  at  any  time  using,  and  these  lay  along 
the  floor,  beside  his  dictionary,  his  shoes,  and  the 
box  that  contained  the  sick  chicken.  A  single  bare 
table  held  the  book  he  had  just  laid  down,  together 
with  a  Greek  newspaper,  a  silver  watch,  a  cravat, 
a  paper  package  or  two,  and  some  scraps  of  bread. 
His  simple  meals  were  prepared  by  himself  over  a 
small  open  stove,  which  served  at  once  for  heat  and 
cookery.  Eating,  however,  was  always  treated  as  a 
subordinate  and  incidental  business,  deserving  no 
fixed  time,  no  dishes,  nor  the  setting  of  a  table.  The 
peasants  of  the  East,  the  monks  of  southern  monas- 
teries, live  chiefly  on  bread  and  fruit,  relished  with  a 


290    A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME 

little  wine ;  and  Sophocles,  in  spite  of  Cambridge  and 
America,  was  to  the  last  a  peasant  and  a  monk.  Such 
simple  nutriments  best  fitted  his  constitution,  for 
"they  found  their  acquaintance  there."  The  western 
world  had  come  to  him  by  accident,  and  was  ignored ; 
the  East  was  in  his  blood,  and  ordered  all  his  goings. 
Yet,  as  a  grave  man  of  the  East  might,  he  had  his 
festivities,  and  could  on  occasion  be  gay.  Among  a 
few  friends  he  could  tell  a  capital  story  and  enjoy 
a  well-cooked  dish.  But  his  ordinary  fare  was  meagre 
in  the  extreme.  For  one  of  his  heartier  meals  he 
would  cut  a  piece  of  meat  into  bits  and  roast  it  on 
a  spit,  as  Homer's  people  roasted  theirs.  "Why  not 
use  a  gridiron  ?  "  I  once  asked.  "  It  is  not  the  same," 
he  said.  "  The  juice  then  runs  into  the  fire.  But  when 
I  turn  my  spit  it  bastes  itself."  His  taste  was  more 
than  usually  sensitive,  kept  fine  and  discriminating 
by  the  restraint  in  which  he  held  it.  Indeed,  all  his 
senses,  except  sight,  were  acute. 

The  wine  he  drank  was  the  delicate  unresinated 
Greek  wine,  —  Corinthian,  or  Chian,  or  Cyprian; 
the  amount  of  water  to  be  mixed  with  each  being 
carefully  debated  and  employed.  Each  winter  a  cask 
was  sent  him  from  a  special  vineyard  on  the  heights 
of  Corinth,  and  occasioned  something  like  a  general 
rejoicing  in  Cambridge,  so  widely  were  its  flavorous 
contents  distributed.  Whenever  this  cask  arrived, 
or  when  there  came  a  box  from  Mt.  Sinai  filled  with 


A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME    291 

potato-like  sweetmeats,  —  a  paste  of  figs,  dates,  and 
nuts,  stuffed  into  sewed  goatskins,  —  or  when  his 
hens  had  been  laying  a  goodly  number  of  eggs,  then 
under  the  blue  cloak  a  selection  of  bottles,  or  of 
sweetmeats,  or  of  eggs  would  be  borne  to  a  friend's 
house,  where  for  an  hour  the  old  man  sat  in  dignity 
and  calm,  opening  and  closing  his  eyes  and  his  jack- 
knife;  uttering  meanwhile  detached  remarks,  wise, 
gruff,  biting,  yet  seldom  lacking  a  kernel  of  kindness, 
till  bedtime  came,  nine  o'clock,  and  he  was  gone,  the 
gifts  —  if  thanks  were  feared  —  left  in  a  chair  by  the 
door.  There  were  half  a  dozen  houses  and  dinner 
tables  in  Cambridge  to  which  he  went  with  pleasure, 
houses  where  he  seemed  to  find  a  solace  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  his  kind.  But  human  beings  were  an  ex- 
ceptional luxury.  He  had  never  learned  to  expect 
them.  They  never  became  necessities  of  his  daily 
life,  and  .1  doubt  if  he  missed  them  when  they  were 
absent.  As  he  slowly  recovered  strength,  after  one 
of  his  later  illnesses,  I  urged  him  to  spend  a  month 
with  me.  Refusing  in  a  brief  sentence,  he  added 
with  unusual  gentleness:  "To  be  alone  is  not  the 
same  for  me  and  for  you.  I  have  never  known  any- 
thing else." 

Unquestionably  much  of  his  disposition  to  remain 
aloof  and  to  resist  the  on-coming  intruder  was  bred 
by  the  experiences  of  his  early  youth.  His  native 
place,  Tsangarada,  is  a  village  of  eastern  Thessaly, 


292    A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME 

far  up  among  the  slopes  of  the  Pindus.  Thither, 
several  centuries  ago,  an  ancestor  led  a  migration 
from  the  west  coast  of  Greece,  and  sought  a  refuge 
from  Turkish  oppression.  From  generation  to  genera- 
tion his  fathers  continued  to  be  shepherds  of  their 
people,  the  office  of  Proestos,  or  governor,  being 
hereditary  in  the  house.  Sturdy  men  those  ancestors 
must  have  been,  and  picturesque  their  times.  In  late 
winter  afternoons,  at  3  Holworthy,  when  the  dusk  be- 
gan to  settle  among  the  elms  about  the  yard,  legends 
of  these  heroes  and  their  far-off  days  would  loiter 
through  the  exile's  mind.  At  such  times  bloody  do- 
ings would  be  narrated  with  all  the  coolness  that 
appears  in  Caesar's  Commentaries,  and  over  the  lis- 
tener would  come  a  sense  of  a  fantastic  world  as 
different  from  our  own  as  that  of  Bret  Harte's  Argo- 
nauts. "My  great-grandfather  was  not  easily  dis- 
turbed. He  was  a  young  man  and  Proestos.  His 
stone  house  stood  apart  from  the  others.  He  was 
sitting  in  its  great  room  one  evening,  and  heard  a 
noise.  He  looked  around,  and  saw  three  men  by  the 
farther  door.  'What  are  you  here  for?'  'We  have 
come  to  assassinate  you.'  'Who  sent  you?'  'An- 
dreas.' It  was  a  political  enemy.  '  How  much  did 
Andreas  promise  you  ? '  '  A  dollar.'  '  I  will  promise 
you  two  dollars  if  you  will  go  and  assassinate  An- 
dreas.' So  they  turned,  went,  and  assassinated  An- 
dreas. My  great-grandfather  went  to  Scyros  the 


A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME    293 

next  day,  and  remained  there  five  years.  In  five  years 
these  things  are  forgotten  in  Greece.  Then  he  came 
back,  and  brought  a  wife  from  Scyros,  and  was  Proes- 
tos  once  more." 

Another  evening:  "People  said  my  grandfather 
died  of  leprosy.  Perhaps  he  did.  As  Proestos  he  gave 
a  decision  against  a  woman,  and  she  hated  him.  One 
night  she  crept  up  behind  the  house,  where  his  clothes 
lay  on  the  ground,  and  spread  over  his  clothes  the 
clothes  of  a  leper.  After  that  he  was  not  well.  His 
hair  fell  off  and  he  died.  But  perhaps  it  was  not 
leprosy;  perhaps  he  died  of  fear.  The  Knights  of 
Malta  were  worrying  the  Turks.  They  sailed  into 
the  harbor  of  Volo,  and  threatened  to  bombard  the 
town.  The  Turks  seized  the  leading  Greeks  and  shut 
them  up  in  the  mosque.  When  the  first  gun  was 
fired  by  the  frigate,  the  heads  of  the  Greeks  were  to 
come  off.  My  grandfather  went  into  the  mosque  a 
young  man.  A  quarter  of  an  hour  afterwards,  the 
gun  was  heard,  and  my  grandfather  waited  for  the 
headsman.  But  the  shot  toppled  down  the  minaret, 
and  the  Knights  of  Malta  were  so  pleased  that  they 
sailed  away,  satisfied.  The  Turks,  watching  them, 
forgot  about  the  prisoners.  But  two  hours  , later, 
when  my  grandfather  came  out  of  the  mosque,  he 
was  an  old  man.  He  could  not  walk  well.  His  hair 
fell  off,  and  he  died." 

Sometimes  I  caught  glimpses  of  Turkish  oppres- 


294    A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME 

sion  in  times  of  peace.  "I  remember  the  first  time 
I  saw  the  wedding  gift  given.  No  new-made  bride 
must  leave  the  house  she  visits  without  a  gift.  My 
mother's  sister  married,  and  came  to  see  us.  I  was  a 
boy.  She  stood  at  the  door  to  go,  and  my  mother  re- 
membered she  had  not  had  the  gift.  There  was  not 
much  to  give.  The  Turks  had  been  worse  than  usual, 
and  everything  was  buried.  But  my  mother  could 
not  let  her  go  without  the  gift.  She  searched  the 
house,  and  found  a  saucer,  —  it  was  a  beautiful 
saucer ;  and  this  she  gave  her  sister,  who  took  it  and 
went  away." 

"How  did  you  get  the  name  of  Sophocles?"  I 
asked,  one  evening.  "  Is  your  family  supposed  to  be 
connected  with  that  of  the  poet  ?  "  "  My  name  is  not 
Sophocles.  I  have  no  family  name.  In  Greece,  when 
a  child  is  born,  it  is  carried  to  the  grandfather  to 
receive  a  name."  (I  thought  how,  in  the  Odyssey, 
the  nurse  puts  the  infant  Odysseus  in  the  arms  of 
his  mother's  father,  Autolycus,  for  naming.)  "The 
grandfather  gives  him  his  own  name.  The  father's 
name,  of  course,  is  different;  and  this  he  too  gives 
when  he  becomes  a  grandfather.  So  in  old  Greek 
families  two  names  alternate  through  generations. 
My  grandfather's  name  was  Evangelinos.  This  he 
gave  to  me;  and  I  was  distinguished  from  others 
of  that  name  because  I  was  the  son  of  Apostolos, 
Apostolides.  But  my  best  schoolmaster  was  fond  of 


A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME    295 

the  poet  Sophocles,  and  he  was  fond  of  me.  He  used 
to  call  me  his  little  Sophocles.  The  other  boys  heard 
it,  and  they  began  to  call  me  so.  It  was  a  nickname. 
But  when  I  left  home  people  took  it  for  my  family 
name.  They  thought  I  must  have  a  family  name. 
I  did  not  contradict  them.  It  makes  no  difference. 
This  is  as  good  as  any."  One  morning  he  received  a 
telegram  of  congratulation  from  the  monks  in  Cairo. 
"It  is  my  day,"  he  said.  "How  did  the  monks  know 
it  was  your  birthday  ? "  I  asked.  "It  is  not  my  birth- 
day. Nobody  thinks  about  that.  It  is  forgotten.  This 
is  my  saint's  day.  Coming  into  the  world  is  of  no 
consequence ;  coming  under  the  charge  of  the  saints 
is  what  we  care  for.  My  name  puts  me  in  the  \7irgin's 
charge,  and  the  feast  of  the  Annunciation  is  my  day. 
The  monks  know  my  name." 

To  the  Greek  Church  he  was  always  loyal.  Its 
faith  had  glorified  his  youth,  and  to  it  he  turned  for 
strength  throughout  his  solitary  years.  Its  conven- 
tual discipline  was  dear  to  him,  and  oftener  than  of 
his  birthplace  at  the  foot  of  Mt.  Olympus  he  dreamed 
of  Mt.  Sinai.  On  Mt.  Sinai  the  Emperor  Justinian 
founded  the  most  revered  of  all  Greek  monasteries. 
Standing  remote  on  its  sacred  mountain,  the  monas- 
tery depends  on  Cairo  for  its  supplies.  In  Cairo,  ac- 
cordingly, there  is  a  branch  or  agency  which  during 
the  boyhood  of  Sophocles  was  presided  over  by  his 
Uncle  Constantius.  At  twelve  he  joined  this  uncle  in 


296    A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME 

Cairo.  In  the  agency  there,  in  the  parent  monastery 
on  Sinai  itself,  and  in  journeyings  between  the  two, 
the  happy  years  were  spent  which  shaped  his  intel- 
lectual and  religious  constitution.  Though  he  never 
outwardly  became  a  monk,  he  largely  became  one 
within.  His  adored  uncle  Constantius  was  his  spirit- 
ual father.  Through  him  his  ideals  had  been  ac- 
quired, —  his  passion  for  learning,  his  hardihood  in 
duty,  his  imperturbable  patience,  his  brief  speech 
which  allowed  only  so  many  words  as  might  scantily 
clothe  his  thought,  his  indifference  to  personal  com- 
fort. He  never  spoke  the  name  of  Constantius  with- 
out some  sign  of  reverence;  and  in  his  will,  after 
making  certain  private  bequests,  and  leaving  to  Har- 
vard College  all  his  printed  books  and  stereotype 
plates,  he  adds  this  clause:  "All  the  residue  and  re- 
mainder of  my  property  and  estate  I  devise  and  be- 
queath to  the  said  President  and  Fellows  of  Harvard 
College  in  trust,  to  keep  the  same  as  a  permanent 
fund,  and  to  apply  the  income  thereof  in  two  equal 
parts :  one  part  to  the  purchase  of  Greek  and  Latin 
books  (meaning  hereby  the  ancient  classics)  or  of 
Arabic  books,  or  of  books  illustrating  or  explaining 
such  Greek,  Latin,  or  Arabic  books ;  and  the  other 
part  to  the  Catalogue  Department  of  the  General 
Library.  .  .  .  My  will  is  that  the  entire  income  of 
the  said  fund  be  expended  in  every  year,  and  that 
the  fund  be  kept  forever  unimpaired,  and  be  called 


and  known  as  the  Constantius  Fund,  in  memory  of 
my  paternal  uncle,  Constantius  the  Sinaite, 


This  man,  then,  by  birth,  training,  and  temper  a 
solitary;  whose  heritage  was  Mt.  Olympus,  and  the 
monastery  of  Justinian,  and  the  Greek  quarter  of 
Cairo,  and  the  isles  of  Greece;  whose  intimates  were 
Hesiod  and  Pindar  and  Arrian  and  Basilides,  — 
this  man  it  was  who,  from  1842  onward,  was  deputed 
to  interpret  to  American  college  boys  the  hallowed 
writings  of  his  race.  Thirty  years  ago  too,  at  the 
period  when  I  sat  on  the  green  bench  in  front  of  the 
long-legged  desk,  college  boys  were  boys  indeed.  They 
had  no  more  knowledge  than  the  high-school  boy 
of  to-day,  and  they  were  kept  in  order  by  much  the 
same  methods.  Thus  it  happened,  by  some  jocose 
perversity  in  the  arrangement  of  human  affairs,  that 
throughout  our  Sophomore  and  Junior  years  we 
sportive  youngsters  were  obliged  to  endure  Sophocles, 
and  Sophocles  was  obliged  to  endure  us.  No  wonder 
if  he  treated  us  with  a  good  deal  of  contempt.  No 
wonder  that  his  power  of  scorn,  originally  splendid, 
enriched  itself  from  year  to  year.  We  learned,  it  is 
true,  something  about  everything  except  Greek  ;  and 
the  best  thing  we  learned  was  a  new  type  of  human 
nature.  Who  that  was  ever  his  pupil  will  forget 
the  calm  bearing,  the  occasional  pinch  of  snuff,  the 
averted  eye,  the  murmur  of  the  interior  voice,  and 


298    A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME 

the  stocky  little  figure  with  the  lion's  head  ?  There  in 
the  corner  he  stood,  as  stranded  and  solitary  as  the 
Egyptian  obelisk  in  the  hurrying  Place  de  la  Con- 
corde. In  a  curious  sort  of  fashion  he  was  faithful 
to  what  he  must  have  felt  an  obnoxious  duty.  He 
was  never  absent  from  his  post,  nor  did  he  cut  short 
the  hours,  but  he  gave  us  only  such  attention  as  was 
nominated  in  the  bond ;  he  appeared  to  hurry  past, 
as  by  set  purpose,  the  beauties  of  what  we  read,  and 
he  took  pleasure  in  snubbing  expectancy  and  aspira- 
tion. 

"When  I  entered  college,"  says  an  eminent  Greek 
scholar,  "I  was  full  of  the  notion,  which  I  probably 
could  not  have  justified,  that  the  Greeks  were  the 
greatest  people  that  had  ever  lived.  My  enthusiasm 
was  fanned  into  a  warmer  glow  when  I  learned  that 
my  teacher  was  himself  a  Greek,  and  that  our  first 
lesson  was  to  be  the  story  of  Thermopylae.  After 
the  passage  of  Herodotus  had  been  duly  read, 
Sophocles  began :  '  You  must  not  suppose  these  men 
stayed  in  the  Pass  because  they  were  brave;  they 
were  afraid  to  run  away.'  A  shiver  went  down  my 
back.  Even  if  what  he  said  had  been  true,  it  ought 
never  to  have  been  told  to  a  Freshman." 

The  universal  custom  of  those  days  was  the  hear- 
ing of  recitations,  and  to  this  Sophocles  conformed  so 
far  as  to  set  a  lesson  and  to  call  for  its  translation 
bit  by  bit.  But  when  a  student  had  read  his  suitable 


A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME    299 

ten  lines,  he  was  stopped  by  the  raised  finger;  and 
Sophocles,  fixing  his  eyes  on  vacancy  and  taking  his 
start  from  some  casual  suggestion  of  the  passage, 
began  a  monologue,  —  a  monologue  not  unlike  one 
of  Browning's  in  its  caprices,  its  involvement,  its 
adaptation  to  the  speaker's  mind  rather  than  to  the 
hearer's,  and  its  ease  in  glancing  from  heaven  to 
earth,  from  earth  to  heaven.  During  these  intervals 
the  sluggish  slumbered,  the  industrious  devoted 
themselves  to  books  and  papers  brought  in  the  pocket 
for  the  purpose,  the  dreamy  enjoyed  the  opportunity 
of  wondering  what  the  strange  words  and  their  still 
stranger  utterer  might  mean.  The  monologue  was 
sometimes  long  and  sometimes  short,  according  as 
the  theme  which  had  been  struck  kindled  the  rhapso- 
dist  and  enabled  him,  with  greater  or  less  complete- 
ness, to  forget  his  class.  When  some  subtlety  was 
approached,  a  smile  —  the  onjy  smile  ever  seen  on 
his  face  by  strangers  —  lifted  for  a  moment  the  corner 
of  the  mouth.  The  student  who  had  been  reciting 
stood  meanwhile,  but  sat  when  the  voice  stopped,  the 
white  head  nodded,  the  pencil  made  a  record,  and  a 
new  name  was  called. 

There  were  perils,  of  course,  in  records  of  this  sort. 
Reasons  for  the  figures  which  subsequently  appeared 
on  the  college  books  were  not  easy  to  find.  Some  of 
us  accounted  for  our  marks  by  the  fact  that  we  had 
red  hair  or  long  noses ;  others  preferred  the  explana- 


300    A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME 

tion  that  our  professor's  pencil  happened  to  move 
more  readily  to  the  right  hand  or  to  the  left.  For 
the  most  part  we  took  good-naturedly  whatever  was 
given  us,  though  questionings  would  sometimes  arise. 
A  little  before  my  time  there  entered  an  ambitious 
young  fellow,  who  cherished  large  purposes  in  Greek. 
At  the  end  of  the  first  month  under  his  queer  instruc- 
tor he  went  to  the  regent  and  inquired  for  his  mark 
in  Plato.  It  was  three,  the  maximum  being  eight. 
Horror-stricken,  he  penetrated  Sophocles's  room. 
"Professor  Sophocles,"  he  said,  "I  find  my  mark  is 
only  three.  There  must  be  some  mistake.  There  is 
another  Jones  in  the  class,  you  know,  J.  S.  Jones" 
(a  lump  of  flesh),  "and  may  it  not  be  that  our  marks 
have  been  confused  ? "  An  unmoved  countenance, 
a  little  wave  of  the  hand,  accompanied  the  answer : 
"You  must  take  your  chance,  —  you  must  take  your 
chance."  In  my  own  section,  when  anybody  was 
absent  from  a  certain  bench,  poor  Prindle  was  al- 
ways obliged  to  go  forward  and  say,  "I  was  here 
to-day,  Professor  Sophocles,"  or  else  the  gap  on 
the  bench  where  six  men  should  sit  was  charged  to 
Prindle's  account.  In  those  easy-going  days,  when 
men  were  examined  for  entrance  to  college  orally  and 
in  squads,  there  was  a  good  deal  of  eagerness  among 
the  knowing  ones  to  get  into  the  squad  of  Sophocles ; 
for  it  was  believed  that  he  admitted  everybody,  on 
the  ground  that  none  of  us  knew  any  Greek,  and  it 


A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME    301 

was  consequently  unfair  to  discriminate.  Fantastic 
stories  were  attributed  to  him,  for  whose  truth  or  error 
none  could  vouch,  and  were  handed  on  from  class  to 
class.  "What  does  Philadelphia  mean  ?"  "Brotherly 
love,"  the  student  answers.  "Yes!  It  is  to  remind 
us  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  who  killed  his  brother." 
A  German  commentator  had  somewhere  mentioned 
lions  in  connection  with  the  Peloponnesus,  and 
Sophocles  inquires  of  Brown  if  he  knows  the  date 
when  lions  first  appeared  in  the  Peloponnesus.  He 
does  not,  nor  does  Smith  nor  Robinson.  At  length 
Green,  driven  to  bay,  declares  in  desperation  that  he 
does  n't  believe  there  ever  were  lions  in  the  Pelopon- 
nesus. To  whom  Sophocles :"  You  are  right.  There 
were  none."  "  Do  you  read  your  examination  books  ?  " 
he  once  asked  a  fellow  instructor.  "If  they  are  bet- 
ter than  you  expect,  the  writers  cheat;  if  they  are 
no  better,  time  is  wasted."  "Is  to-day  story  day  or 
contradiction  day  ? "  he  is  reported  to  have  said  to 
one  who,  in  the  war  time,  eagerly  handed  him  a  news- 
paper, and  asked  if  he  had  seen  the  morning's  news. 
How  much  of  this  cynicism  of  conduct  and  of 
speech  was  genuine  perhaps  he  knew  as  little  as 
the  rest  of  us ;  but  certainly  it  imparted  a  pessimistic 
tinge  to  all  he  did  and  said.  To  hear  him  talk,  one 
would  suppose  the  world  was  ruled  by  accident  or 
by  an  utterly  irrational  fate ;  for  in  his  mind  the  two 
conceptions  seemed  closely  to  coincide.  His  words 


302    A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME 

were  never  abusive ;  they  were  deliberate,  peaceful 
even ;  but  they  made  it  very  plain  that  so  long  as  one 
lived  there  was  no  use  in  expecting  anything.  Para- 
doxes were  a  little  more  probable  than  ordered  cal- 
culations; but  even  paradoxes  would  fail.  Human 
beings  were  altogether  impotent,  though  they  fussed 
and  strutted  as  if  they  could  accomplish  great  things. 
How  silly  was  trust  in  men's  goodness  and  power, 
even  in  one's  own !  Most  men  were  bad  and  stupid, 
—  Germans  especially  so.  The  Americans  knew 
nothing,  and  never  could  know.  A  wise  man  would 
not  try  to  teach  them.  Yet  some  persons  dreamed 
of  establishing  a  university  in  America!  Did  they 
expect  scholarship  where  there  were  politicians  and 
business  men  ?  Evil  influences  were  far  too  strong. 
They  always  were.  The  good  were  made  expressly 
to  suffer,  the  evil  to  succeed.  Better  leave  the  world 
alone,  and  keep  one's  self  true.  "Put  a  drop  of  milk 
into  a  gallon  of  ink ;  it  will  make  no  difference.  Put 
a  drop  of  ink  into  a  gallon  of  milk;  the  whole  is 
spoiled." 

I  have  felt  compelled  to  dwell  at  some  length  on 
these  cynical,  illogical,  and  austere  aspects  of  Sopho- 
cles's  character,  and  even  to  point  out  the  circum- 
stances of  his  life  which  may  have  shaped  them, 
because  these  were  the  features  by  which  the  world 
commonly  judged  him,  and  was  misled.  One  meet- 
ing him  casually  had  little  more  to  judge  by.  So  en- 


A  TEACHER  OF  THE   OLDEN  TIME    303 

tire  was  his  reserve,  so  little  did  he  permit  close  con- 
versation, so  seldom  did  he  raise  his  eye  in  his  slow 
walks  on  the  street,  so  rarely  might  a  stranger  pass 
within  the  bolted  door  of  his  chamber,  that  to  the 
last  he  bore  to  the  average  college  student  the  char- 
acter of  a  sphinx,  marvellous  in  self-sufficiency, 
amazing  in  erudition,  romantic  in  his  suggestion 
of  distant  lands  and  customs,  and  forever  piquing 
curiosity  by  his  eccentric  and  sarcastic  sayings.  All 
this  whimsicality  and  pessimism  would  have  been 
cheap  enough,  and  little  worth  recording,  had  it  stood 
alone.  What  lent  it  price  and  beauty  was  that  it  was 
the  utterance  of  a  singularly  self-denying  and  tender 
soul.  The  incongruity  between  his  bitter  speech  and 
his  kind  heart  endeared  both  to  those  who  knew  him. 
Like  his  venerable  cloak,  his  grotesque  language 
often  hid  a  bounty  underneath-  How  many  students 
have  received  his  surly  benefactions !  In  how  many 
small  tradesmen's  shops  did  he  have  his  appointed 
chair !  His  room  was  bare :  but  in  his  native  town  an 
aqueduct  was  built ;  his  importunate  and  ungrateful 
relatives  were  pensioned;  the  monks  of  Mt.  Sinai 
were  protected  against  want ;  the  children  and  grand- 
children of  those  who  had  befriended  his  early  years 
in  America  were  watched  over  with  a  father's  love ; 
and  by  care  for  helpless  creatures  wherever  they 
crossed  his  path  he  kept  himself  clean  of  selfishness. 
One  winter  night,  at  nearly  ten  o'clock,  I  was 


304    A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME 

called  to  my  door.  There  stood  Sophocles.  When  I 
asked  him  why  he  was  not  in  bed  an  hour  ago,  "A. 
has  gone  home,"  he  said.  "I  know  it,"  I  answered; 
for  A.  was  a  young  instructor  dear  to  me.  "He  is 
sick,"  he  went  on.  "Yes."  "He  has  no  money." 
"Well,  we  will  see  how  he  will  get  along."  "But  you 
must  get  him  some  money,  and  I  must  know  about 
it."  And  he  would  not  go  back  into  the  storm  —  this 
graybeard  professor,  solicitous  for  an  overworked 
tutor  —  till  I  assured  him  that  arrangements  had 
been  made  for  continuing  A.'s  salary  during  his  ab- 
sence. I  declare,  in  telling  the  tale  I  am  ashamed. 
Am  I  wronging  the  good  man  by  disclosing  his  secret, 
and  saying  that  he  was  not  the  cynical  curmudgeon 
for  which  he  tried  to  pass  ?  But  already  before  he 
was  in  his  grave  the  secret  had  been  discovered,  and 
many  gave  him  persistently  the  love  which  he  still 
tried  to  wave  away. 

Toward  dumb  and  immature  creatures  his  tender- 
ness was  more  frank,  for  these  could  not  thank  him. 
Children  always  recognized  in  him  their  friend.  A 
group  of  curly-heads  usually  appeared  in  his  window 
on  Class  Day.  A  stray  cat  knew  him  at  once,  and, 
though  he  seldom  stroked  her,  would  quickly  ac- 
commodate herself  near  his  legs.  By  him  spiders 
were  watched,  and  their  thin  wants  supplied.  But 
his  solitary  heart  went  out  most  unreservedly  and 
with  the  most  pathetic  devotion  toward  fragile 


A  TEACHER  OF   THE  OLDEN  TIME    305 

chickens ;  and  out  of  these  uninteresting  little  birds 
he  elicited  a  degree  of  responsive  intelligence  which 
was  startling  to  see.  One  of  his  dearest  friends, 
coming  home  from  a  journey,  brought  him  a  couple 
of  bantam  eggs.  When  hatched  and  grown,  they 
developed  into  a  little  five-inch  burnished  cock, 
which  shone  like  a  jewel  or  a  bird  of  paradise,  and  a 
more  sober  but  exquisite  hen.  These  two,  Frank  and 
Nina,  and  all  their  numerous  progeny  for  many  years, 
Sophocles  trained  to  the  hand.  Each  knew  its  name, 
and  would  run  from  the  flock  when  its  white-haired 
keeper  called,  and,  sitting  upon  his  hand  or  shoulder, 
would  show  queer  signs  of  affection,  not  hesitating 
even  to  crow.  The  same  generous  friend  who  gave 
the  eggs  gave  shelter  also  to  the  winged  consequences. 
And  thus  it  happened  that  three  times  a  day,  so  long 
as  he  was  able  to  leave  his  room,  Sophocles  went  to 
that  house  where  Radcliffe  College  is  now  sheltered 
to  attend  his  pets.  White  grapes  were  carried  there, 
and  the  choicest  of  corn  and  clamshell ;  and  endless 
study  was  given  to  devising  conveniences  for  housing, 
nesting,  and  the  promenade.  But  he  did  not  demand 
too  much  from  his  chickens.  In  their  case,  as  in  deal- 
ing with  human  beings,  he  felt  it  wise  to  bear  in  mind 
the  limit  and  to  respect  the  foreordained.  When  Nina 
was  laying  badly,  one  springtime,  I  suggested  a 
special  food  as  a  good  egg-producer.  But  Sophocles 
declined  to  use  it.  "You  may  hasten  matters,"  he 


306    A  TEACHER  OF  THE   OLDEN  TIME 

said,  "but  you  cannot  change  them.  A  hen  is  born 
with  just  so  many  eggs  to  lay.  You  cannot  increase 
the  number."  The  eggs,  as  soon  as  laid,  were  pen- 
cilled with  the  date  and  the  name  of  the  mother,  and 
were  then  distributed  among  his  friends,  or  sparingly 
eaten  at  his  own  meals.  To  eat  a  chicken  itself  was 
a  kind  of  cannibalism  from  which  his  whole  nature 
shrank.  "I  do  not  eat  what  I  love,"  he  said,  reject- 
ing the  bowl  of  chicken  broth  I  pressed  upon  him  in 
his  last  sickness. 

For  protecting  creatures  naturally  so  helpless, 
sternness  —  or  at  least  its  outward  seeming  —  be- 
came occasionally  necessary.  One  day  young 
Thornton's  dog  leaped  into  the  hen-yard  and  caused 
a  commotion  there.  Sophocles  was  prompt  in  de- 
fence. He  drew  a  pistol  and  fired,  while  the  dog, 
perceiving  his  mistake,  retreated  as  he  had  come. 
The  following  day  Thornton  Senior,  walking  down 
the  street,  was  suddenly  embarrassed  by  seeing 
Sophocles  on  the  same  sidewalk.  Remembering, 
however,  the  old  man's  usually  averted  gaze,  he 
hoped  to  pass  unnoticed.  But  as  the  two  came 
abreast,  gruff  words  and  a  piercing  eye  signalled 
stoppage.  "Mr.  Thornton,  you  have  a  son."  "Yes, 
Mr.  Sophocles,  a  boy  generally  well-meaning  but 
sometimes  thoughtless."  "Your  son  has  a  dog."  "A 
nervous  dog,  rather  difficult  to  regulate."  "The  dog 
worried  my  chickens."  "So  I  heard,  and  was  sorry 


A  TEACHER  OF  THE  OLDEN  TIME    307 

enough  to  hear  it."  "I  fired  a  pistol  at  him."  "Very 
properly.  A  pity  you  did  n't  hit  him."  "The  pistol 
was  not  loaded."  And  before  Mr.  Thornton  could 
recover  his  wits  for  a  suitable  reply  Sophocles  had 
drawn  from  his  pocket  one  of  his  long  Sinaitic  sweet- 
meats, had  cut  off  a  lump  with  his  jack-knife,  handed 
it  to  Mr.  Thornton,  and  with  the  words,  "This  is  for 
the  boy  who  owns  the  dog,"  was  gone.  The  incident 
well  illustrates  the  sweetness  and  savagery  of  the 
man,  his  plainness,  his  readiness  to  right  a  wrong 
and  protect  the  weak,  his  rejection  of  smooth  and 
unnecessary  words,  his  rugged  exterior,  and  the 
underlying  kindness  which  ever  attended  it. 

If  in  ways  so  uncommon  his  clinging  nature,  cut 
off  from  domestic  opportunity,  went  out  to  children 
and  unresponsive  creatures,  it  may  be  imagined  how 
good  cause  of  love  he  furnished  to  his  few  intimates 
among  mankind.  They  found  in  him  sweet  cour- 
tesy, undemanding  gentleness,  an  almost  feminine 
tact  in  adapting  what  he  could  give  to  what  they 
might  receive.  To  their  eyes  the  great  scholar,  the 
austere  monk,  the  bizarre  professor,  the  pessimist, 
were  hidden  by  the  large  and  lovable  man.  Even 
strangers  recognized  him  as  no  common  person,  so 
thoroughly  was  all  he  did  and  said  purged  of  super- 
fluity, so  veracious  was  he,  so  free  from  apology. 
His  everyday  thoughts  were  worthy  thoughts.  He 
knew  no  shame  or  fear,  and  had  small  wish,  I  think, 


308    A  TEACHER  OF  THE   OLDEN   TIME 

for  any  change.  Always  a  devout  Christian,  he  seldom 
used  expressions  of  regret  or  hope.  Probably  he 
concerned  himself  little  with  these  or  other  feelings. 
In  the  last  days  of  his  life,  it  is  true,  when  his  thoughts 
were  oftener  in  Arabia  than  in  Cambridge,  he  once 
or  twice  referred  to  "the  ambition  of  learning"  as 
the  temptation  which  had  drawn  him  out  from  the 
monastery,  and  had  given  him  a  life  less  holy  than 
he  might  have  led  among  the  monks.  But  these  were 
moods  of  humility  rather  than  of  regret.  Habitually 
he  maintained  an  elevation  above  circumstances,  — 
was  it  Stoicism  or  Christianity  ?  —  which  imparted 
to  his  behavior,  even  when  most  eccentric,  an  un- 
shakable dignity.  When  I  have  found  him  in  his 
room,  curled  up  in  shirt  and  drawers,  reading  the 
"Arabian  Nights,"  the  Greek  service  book,  or  the 
"Ladder  of  the  Virtues"  by  John  Klimakos,  he  has 
risen  to  receive  me  with  the  bearing  of  an  Arab 
sheikh,  and  has  laid  by  the  Greek  folio  and  motioned 
me  to  a  chair  with  a  stateliness  not  natural  to  our 
land  or  century.  It  would  be  clumsy  to  liken  him  to 
one  of  Plutarch's  men ;  for  though  there  was  much 
of  the  heroic  and  extraordinary  in  his  character  and 
manners,  nothing  about  him  suggested  a  suspicion 
of  being  on  show.  The  mould  in  which  he  was  cast 
was  formed  earlier.  In  his  bearing  and  speech,  and 
in  a  certain  large  simplicity  of  mental  structure,  he 
was  the  most  Homeric  man  I  ever  knew. 


Ill 

PAPERS  BY   ALICE  FREEMAN  PALMER 


PAPERS  BY  ALICE   FREEMAN  PALMER 

WHILE  Mrs.  Palmer  always  avoided  writing,  and  thought 
—  generous  prodigal !  —  that  her  work  was  best  accom- 
plished by  spoken  words,  her  complying  spirit  could  not 
always  resist  the  appeals  of  magazine  editors.  I  could  wish 
now  that  their  requests  had  been  even  more  urgent.  And 
I  believe  that  those  who  read  these  pages  will  regret  that 
one  possessed  of  such  breadth  of  view,  clearness,  charm 
and  cogency  of  style  should  have  left  a  literary  record  so 
meagre.  All  these  papers  are  printed  precisely  as  she 
left  them,  without  the  change  of  a  word.  I  have  not  even 
ventured  on  correction  in  the  printed  report  of  one  of  her 
addresses,  that  on  going  to  college.  Its  looser  structure  well 
illustrates  her  mode  of  moving  an  audience  and  bringing 
its  mothers  to  the  course  of  conduct  she  approved. 


XIII 

THREE  TYPES  OF  WOMEN'S  COLLEGES1 

AMERICAN  college  education  in  the  quarter-cen- 
tury since  the  Civil  War  has  undergone  more  nu- 
merous and  more  fundamental  changes  than  befell 
it  in  a  hundred  years  before.  These  changes  have 
not  occurred  unnoticed.  A  multitude  of  journals  and 
associations  are  busy  every  year  discussing  the  results 
of  the  experiments  in  teaching  which  go  on  with 
increasing  daring  and  fruitfulness  in  nearly  all  our 
colleges  and  schools.  There  still  exists  a  wide  diver- 
gence of  opinion  among  the  directors  of  men's  colleges 
in  regard  to  a  variety  of  important  questions :  the 
conditions  and  proper  age  for  entrance;  the  length 
of  the  course  of  study;  the  elective  system,  both  of 
government  and  instruction;  the  requirements  for 
the  bachelor's  and  master's  degrees ;  the  stress  to  be 
laid  on  graduate  work  —  these,  and  many  sequents 
of  these,  touching  the  physical,  social,  and  religious 
life  of  the  young  men  of  the  land,  are  undergoing 
sharp  discussion. 

The  advanced  education  of  young  women  is  ex- 
posed  to  all  the  uncertainties  which  beset  the  e,du- 
1  Published  in  The  Forum  for  September,  1891. 


314  THREE  TYPES 

cation  of  men,  but  it  has  perplexities  of  its  own  in 
addition.  After  fifty  years  of  argument  and  twenty- 
five  of  varied  and  costly  experiment,  it  might  be  easy 
to  suppose  that  we  are  still  in  chaos,  almost  as  far 
from  knowing  the  best  way  to  train  a  woman  as  we 
were  at  the  beginning.  No  educational  convention 
meets  without  a  session  devoted  to  the  difficulties 
in  "the  higher  education  of  women,"  so  important 
has  the  subject  become,  and  so  hard  is  it  to  satisfy 
in  any  one  system  the  variety  of  its  needs.  Yet  chaos 
may  be  thought  more  chaotic  than  it  really  is.  In 
the  din  of  discussion  it  would  not  be  strange  if  the 
fair  degree  of  concord  already  reached  should  some- 
times be  missed.  We  are  certainly  still  far  from 
having  found  the  one  best  method  of  college  train- 
ing for  girls.  Some  of  us  hope  we  may  never  find  it, 
believing  that  in  diversity,  no  less  than  in  unity,  there 
is  strength.  But  already  three  tolerably  clear,  con- 
sistent, and  accredited  types  of  education  appear, 
which  it  will  be  the  purpose  of  this  paper  to  explain. 
The  nature  of  each,  with  its  special  strengths  and 
weaknesses,  will  be  set  forth  in  no  spirit  of  partisan- 
ship, but  in  the  belief  that  a  cool  understanding  of 
what  is  doing  at  present  among  fifty  thousand  college 
girls  may  make  us  wiser  and  more  patient  in  our 
%  future  growth.  What,  then,  are  the  three  types,  and 
how  have  they  arisen  ? 

When  to  a  few  daring  minds  the  conviction  came 


OF  WOMEN'S  COLLEGES  315 

that  education  was  a  right  of  personality  rather  than 
of  sex,  and  when  there  was  added  to  this  growing 
sentiment  the  pressing  demand  for  educated  women 
as  teachers  and  as  leaders  in  philanthropy,  the  sim- 
plest means  of  equipping  women  with  the  needful 
preparation  was  found  in  the  existing  schools  and 
colleges.  Scattered  all  over  the  country  were  colleges 
for  men,  young  for  the  most  part  and  small,  and 
greatly  lacking  anything  like  a  proper  endowment. 
In  nearly  every  state  west  of  the  Alleghanies,  "uni- 
versities "  had  been  founded  by  the  voluntary  tax  of 
the  whole  population.  Connected  with  all  the  more 
powerful  religious  denominations  were  schools  and 
colleges  which  called  upon  their  adherents  for  gifts 
and  students.  These  democratic  institutions  had 
the  vigor  of  youth,  and  were  ambitious  and  struggling. 
"Why,"  asked  the  practical  men  of  affairs  who  con- 
trolled them,  "should  not  our  daughters  go  on  with 
our  sons  from  the  public  schools  to  the  university 
which  we  are  sacrificing  to  equip  and  maintain  ? 
Why  should  we  duplicate  the  enormously  expensive 
appliances  of  education,  when  our  existing  colleges 
would  be  bettered  by  more  students  ?  By  far  the  large 
majority  of  our  boys  and  girls  study  together  as  chil- 
dren ;  they  work  together  as  men  and  women  in  all 
the  important  concerns  of  life ;  why  should  they  be 
separated  in  the  lecture  room  for  only  the  four  years 
between  eighteen  and  twenty-two,  when  that  separa- 


316  THREE  TYPES 

tion  means  the  doubling  of  an  equipment  already 
too  poor  by  half  ?  " 

It  is  not  strange  that  with  this  and  much  more 
practical  reasoning  of  a  similar  kind,  coeducation 
was  established  in  some  colleges  at  their  beginning, 
in  others  after  debate  and  by  a  radical  change  in 
policy.  When  once  the  chivalrous  desire  was  aroused 
to  give  girls  as  good  an  education  as  their  brothers, 
western  men  carried  out  the  principle  unflinchingly. 
From  the  kindergarten  to  the  preparation  for  the 
doctorate  of  philosophy,  educational  opportunities 
are  now  practically  alike  for  men  and  women.  The 
total  number  of  colleges  of  arts  and  sciences  empow- 
ered by  law  to  give  degrees,  reporting  to  Washing- 
ton in  1888,  was  three  hundred  and  eighty-nine.  Of 
these  two  hundred  and  thirty-seven,  or  nearly  two 
thirds,  were  coeducational.  Among  them  are  all  the 
state  universities,  and  nearly  all  the  colleges  under 
the  patronage  of  the  Protestant  sects. 

Hitherto  I  have  spoken  as  if  coeducation  were  a 
western  movement ;  and  in  the  West  it  certainly  has 
had  greater  currency  than  elsewhere.  But  it  origi- 
nated, at  least  so  far  as  concerns  superior  secondary 
training,  in  Massachusetts.  Bradford  Academy, 
chartered  in  1804,  is  the  oldest  incorporated  insti- 
tution in  the  country  to  which  boys  and  girls  were 
from  the  first  admitted ;  but  it  closed  its  department 
for  boys  in  1836,  three  years  after  the  foundation  of 


OF  WOMEN'S  COLLEGES  317 

coeducational  Oberlin,  and  in  the  very  year  when 
Mount  Holyoke  was  opened  by  Mary  Lyon,  in  the 
large  hope  of  doing  for  young  women  what  Harvard 
had  been  founded  to  do  for  young  men  just  two  hun- 
dred years  before.  Ipswich  and  Abbot  Academies 
in  Massachusetts  had  already  been  chartered  to  edu- 
cate girls  alone.  It  has  been  the  dominant  sentiment 
in  the  East  that  boys  and  girls  should  be  educated 
separately.  The  older,  more  generously  endowed, 
more  conservative  seats  of  learning,  inheriting  the 
complications  of  the  dormitory  system,  have  remained 
closed  to  women.  The  requirements  for  the  two  sexes 
are  thought  to  be  different.  Girls  are  to  be  trained 
for  private,  boys  for  public  life.  Let  every  oppor- 
tunity be  given,  it  is  said,  for  developing  accom- 
plished, yes,  even  learned  women ;  but  let  the  process 
of  acquiring  knowledge  take  place  under  careful 
guardianship,  among  the  refinements  of  home  life, 
with  graceful  women,  their  instructors,  as  compan- 
ions, and  with  suitable  opportunities  for  social  life. 
Much  stress  is  laid  upon  assisting  girl  students  to 
attain  balanced  characters,  charming  manners,  and 
ambitions  that  are  not  unwomanly.  A  powerful 
moral,  often  a  deeply  religious  earnestness,  shaped 
the  discussion,  and  finally  laid  the  foundations  of 
woman's  education  in  the  East. 

In  the  short  period  of  the  twenty  years  after  the 
war  the  four  women's  colleges  which  are  the  richest 


318  THREE  TYPES 

in  endowments  and  students  of  any  in  the  world 
were  founded  and  set  in  motion.  These  colleges  — 
Vassar,  opened  in  1865,  Wellesley  and  Smith  in  1875, 
and  Bryn  Mawr  in  1885  —  have  received  in  gifts 
of  every  kind  about  $6,000,000,  and  are  educating 
nearly  two  thousand  students.  For  the  whole  country 
the  Commissioner  of  Education  reports  two  hundred 
and  seven  institutions  for  the  superior  instruction  of 
women,  with  more  than  twenty-five  thousand  stu- 
dents. But  these  resources  proved  inadequate.  There 
came  an  increasing  demand,  especially  from  teach- 
ers, for  education  of  all  sorts;  more  and  more,  too, 
for  training  in  subjects  of  advanced  research.  For 
this,  only  the  best  equipped  men's  universities  were 
thought  sufficient,  and  women  began  to  resort  to  the 
great  universities  of  England  and  Germany.  In  an 
attempt  to  meet  a  demand  of  this  sort  the  Harvard 
Annex  began,  twelve  years  ago,  to  provide  women 
with  instruction  by  members  of  the  Harvard  Faculty. 
Where,  in  a  great  centre  of  education,  for  many 
years  books  have  accumulated,  and  museums  and 
laboratories  have  multiplied,  where  the  prestige 
and  associations  of  a  venerable  past  have  grown  up, 
and  cultivated  surroundings  assure  a  scholarly  at- 
mosphere; in  short,  in  the  shadow  of  all  that  goes 
to  make  up  the  gracious  influences  of  an  old  and 
honorable  university,  it  was  to  be  expected  that  ear- 
nest women  would  gather  to  seek  a  share  in  the  enthu- 


OF  WOMEN'S  COLLEGES  319 

siasm  for  scholarship,  and  the  opportunities  for  ac- 
quiring it,  which  their  brothers  had  enjoyed  for  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years. 

These,  then  —  coeducation,  the  woman's  college, 
and  the  annex  —  are  the  three  great  types  of  college 
in  which  the  long  agitation  in  behalf  of  women's 
education  has  thus  far  issued.  Of  course  they  are  but 
types  —  that  is,  they  do  not  always  exist  distinct  and 
entire;  they  are  rather  the  central  forms  to  which 
many  varieties  approximate.  The  characteristic  fea- 
tures of  each  I  must  now  describe,  and,  as  I  promised 
at  the  beginning,  point  out  their  inherent  strengths 
and  weaknesses;  for  each,  while  having  much  to 
recommend  it,  still  bears  in  itself  the  defects  of  its 
qualities.  To  explain  dangers  as  well  as  promises 
is  the  business  of  the  critic,  as  contrasted  with  that 
of  the  advocate.  To  this  business  I  now  turn,  and 
I  may  naturally  have  most  in  mind  the  University 
of  Michigan,  my  own  Alma  Mater,  Wellesley  Col- 
lege, with  whose  government  I  have  been  connected 
for  a  dozen  years,  and  the  Harvard  Annex,  whose 
neighbor  I  now  am. 

Coeducation  involves,  as  its  name  implies,  the 
education  of  a  company  of  young  men  and  women  as 
a  single  body.  To  the  two  sexes  alike  are  presented 
the  same  conditions  of  admission,  of  opportunities 
during  the  course,  of  requirements  for  the  degrees, 
of  guardianship,  of  discipline,  of  organization.  The 


320  THREE  TYPES 

typical  features  are  identical  classrooms,  libraries, 
and  laboratories,  occupied  at  the  same  time,  under 
the  same  instructors;  and  the  same  honors  for  like 
work.  Ordinarily  all  the  instructors  are  men,  al- 
though in  a  few  universities  professorships  are  held 
by  women.  Usually  no  dormitories  or  boarding- 
houses  are  provided  for  either  the  young  men  or  wo- 
men, and  no  more  surveillance  is  kept  over  the  one 
than  over  the  other.  This  feature,  however,  is  not 
essential.  At  Cornell,  Oberlin,  and  elsewhere,  often 
out  of  local  necessity,  buildings  have  been  provided 
where  the  young  women  may  —  in  some  instances, 
must  —  live  together  under  the  ordinary  regulations 
of  home  life,  with  a  lady  in  charge.  But  in  most  of 
the  higher  coeducational  institutions  the  principle 
has  from  the  first  been  assumed  that  students  of  both 
sexes  become  sufficiently  matured  by  eighteen  years 
of  home,  school,  and  social  life  —  especially  under 
the  ample  opportunities  for  learning  the  uses  of 
freedom  which  our  social  habits  afford  —  safely  to 
undertake  a  college  course,  and  advantageously  to 
order  their  daily  lives.  Of  course  all  have  a  moral 
support  in  the  advice  and  example  of  their  teachers, 
and  they  are  held  to  good  intellectual  work  by  the 
perpetual  demand  of  the  classroom,  the  laboratory, 
and  the  thesis. 

The  girl  who  goes  to  the  University  of  Michigan 
to-day,  just  as  when  I  entered  there  in  1872,  finds 


OF  WOMEN'S  COLLEGES  321 

her  own  boarding-place  in  one  of  the  quiet  homes  of 
the  pleasant  little  city  whose  interest  centres  in  the 
two  thousand  five  hundred  students  scattered  within 
its  borders.  She  makes  the  business  arrangements 
for  her  winter's  fuel  and  its  storage ;  she  finds  her 
washerwoman  or  her  laundry ;  she  arranges  her  own 
hours  of  exercise,  of  study,  and  of  sleep ;  she  chooses 
her  own  society,  clubs,  and  church.  The  advice  she 
gets  comes  from  another  girl  student  of  sophomoric 
dignity  who  chances  to  be  in  the  same  house,  or  pos- 
sibly from  a  still  more  advanced  young  woman  whom 
she  met  on  the  journey,  or  sat  near  in  church  on  her 
first  Sunday.  Strong  is  the  comradeship  among  these 
ambitious  girls,  who  nurse  one  another  in  illness, 
admonish  one  another  in  health,  and  rival  one  an- 
other in  study  only  less  eagerly  than  they  all  rival  the 
boys.  In  my  time  in  college  the  little  group  of  girls, 
suddenly  introduced  into  the  army  of  young  men, 
felt  that  the  fate  of  our  sex  hung  upon  proving 
that  "lady  Greek"  involved  the  accents,  and  that 
women's  minds  were  particularly  absorptive  of  the 
calculus  and  metaphysics.  And  still  in  those  sections 
where,  with  growing  experience,  the  anxieties  about 
coeducation  have  been  allayed,  a  healthy  and  hearty 
relationship  and  honest  rivalry  between  young  men 
and  women  exists.  It  is  a  stimulating  atmosphere,  and 
develops  in  good  stock  a  strength  and  independent 
balance  which  tell  in  after-life. 


322  THREE  TYPES 

In  estimating  the  worth  of  such  a  system  as  this, 
we  may  say  at  once  that  it  does  not  meet  every  need 
of  a  woman's  nature.  No  system  can  —  no  system 
that  has  yet  been  devised.  A  woman  is  an  object  of 
attraction  to  men,  and  also  in  herself  so  delicately 
organized  as  to  be  fitted  peculiarly  for  the  graces  and 
domesticities  of  life.  The  exercise  of  her  special  func- 
tion of  motherhood  demands  sheltered  circumstances 
and  refined  moral  perceptions.  But  then,  over  and 
above  all  this,  she  is  a  human  being  —  a  person, 
that  is,  who  has  her  own  way  in  the  world  to  make, 
and  who  will  come  to  success  or  failure,  in  her  home 
or  outside  it,  according  as  her  judgment  is  fortified, 
her  observations  and  experiences  are  enlarged,  her 
courage  is  rendered  strong  and  calm,  her  moral  esti- 
mates are  trained  to  be  accurate,  broad,  and  swift. 
In  a  large  tract  of  her  character  —  is  it  the  largest 
tract  ?  —  her  own  needs  and  those  of  the  young  man 
are  identical.  Both  are  rational  persons,  and  the 
greater  part  of  the  young  man's  education  is  addressed 
to  his  rational  personality  rather  than  to  the  pecu- 
liarities of  his  sex.  Why,  the  defenders  of  coeduca- 
tion ask,  may  not  the  same  principles  apply  to  wo- 
men ?  Why  train  a  girl  specifically  to  be  a  wife  and 
mother,  when  no  great  need  is  felt  for  training  a  boy 
to  be  a  husband  and  father  ?  In  education,  as  a  pub- 
lic matter,  the  two  sexes  meet  on  common  ground. 
The  differences  must  be  attended  to  privately. 


OF  WOMEN'S  COLLEGES  323 

At  any  rate,  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  rela- 
tive importance  of  the  two  sides  —  the  woman  side 
and  the  human  side  —  it  will  be  generally  agreed 
that  the  training  of  a  young  woman  is  apt  to  be  pe- 
culiarly weak  in  agencies  for  bringing  home  to  her 
the  importance  of  direct  and  rational  action.  The 
artificialities  of  society,  the  enfeebling  indulgence  ex- 
tended to  pretty  silliness,  the  gallantry  of  men  glad" 
ever  to  accept  the  hard  things  and  leave  to  her  the 
easy  —  by  these  influences  any  comfortably  placed 
and  pleasing  girl  is  pretty  sure  to  be  surrounded  in 
her  early  teens.  The  coeducationists  think  it  whole- 
some that  in  her  later  teens  and  early  twenties  she 
should  be  subjected  to  an  impartial  judgment,  ready 
to  estimate  her  without  swerving,  and  to  tell  her  as 
freely  when  she  is  silly,  ignorant,  fussy,  or  indolent 
as  her  brother  himself  is  told.  Coeducation,  as  a 
system,  must  minimize  the  different  needs  of  men 
and  women ;  it  appeals  to  them  and  provides  for  them 
alike,  and  then  allows  the  natural  tastes  and  instincts 
of  each  scope  for  individuality.  The  strengths  of  this 
system,  accordingly,  are  to  be  found  in  its  tendency 
to  promote  independence  of  judgment,  individuality 
of  tastes,  common-sense  and  foresight  in  self-guid- 
ance, disinclination  to  claim  favor,  interest  in  learning 
for  its  own  sake ;  friendly,  natural,  unromantic,  non- 
sentimental  relations  with  men.  The  early  fear  that 
coeducation  would  result  in  classroom  romances 


324  THREE  TYPES 

has  proved  exaggerated.  These  young  women  do 
marry;  so  do  others;  so  do  young  men.  Marriage  is 
not  in  itself  an  evil,  and  many  happy  homes  have 
been  founded  in  the  belief  that  long  and  quiet  ac- 
quaintance in  intellectual  work,  and  intimate  inter- 
ests of  the  same  deeper  sort,  form  as  solid  a  basis  for 
a  successful  marriage  as  ballroom  intercourse  or  a 
summer  at  Bar  Harbor. 

The  weaknesses  of  this  system  are  merely  the  con- 
verse of  its  strengths.  It  does  not  usually  provide  for 
what  is  distinctively  feminine.  Refining  home  influ- 
ences and  social  oversight  are  largely  lacking;  and 
if  they  are  wanting  in  the  home  from  which  the 
student  comes,  it  must  not  be  expected  that  she 
will  show,  on  graduation,  the  graces  of  manner,  the 
niceties  of  speech  and  dress,  and  the  shy  delicacy 
which  have  been  encouraged  in  her  more  tenderly 
nurtured  sister. 

The  woman's  college  is  organized  under  a  different 
and  far  more  complex  conception.  The  chief  busi- 
ness of  the  man's  college,  whether  girls  are  admitted 
to  it  or  not,  is  to  give  instruction  of  the  best  available 
quality  in  as  many  subjects  as  possible;  to  furnish 
every  needed  appliance  for  the  acquirement  of  know- 
ledge and  the  encouragement  of  special  investigation. 
The  woman's  college  aims  to  do  all  this,  but  it  aims 
also  to  make  for  its  students  a  home  within  its  own 
walls  and  to  develop  other  powers  in  them  than  the 


OF  WOMEN'S  COLLEGES  325 

merely  intellectual.  At  the  outset  this  may  seem  a 
simple  matter,  but  it  quickly  proves  as  complicated 
as  life  itself.  When  girls  are  gathered  together  by 
hundreds,  isolated  from  the  ordinary  conditions  of 
established  communities,  the  college  stands  to  them 
preeminently  in  loco  parentis.  It  must  provide  res- 
ident physicians  and  trained  nurses,  be  ready  in 
case  of  illness  and,  to  prevent  illness,  must  direct 
exercise,  sleep,  hygiene  and  sanitation,  accepting  the 
responsibility  not  only  of  the  present  health  of  its 
students,  but  also  in  large  degree  of  their  physical 
power  in  the  future.  It  generally  furnishes  them 
means  of  social  access  to  the  best  men  and  women 
of  their  neighborhood;  it  draws  to  them  leaders  in 
moral  and  social  reforms,  to  give  inspiration  in  high 
ideals  and  generous  self-sacrifice,  and  it  undertakes 
religious  instruction  while  seeding  still  to  respect 
the  varied  faiths  of  its  students.  In  short,  the  ar- 
rangements of  the  woman's  college,  as  conceived  by 
founders,  trustees,  and  faculty,  have  usually  aimed 
with  conscious  directness  at  building  up  character, 
inspiring  to  the  service  of  others,  cultivating  manners, 
developing  taste,  and  strengthening  health,  as  well 
as  providing  the  means  of  sound  learning. 

It  may  be  said  that  a  similar  upbuilding  of  the 
personal  life  results  from  the  training  of  every  col- 
lege that  is  worthy  of  the  name;  and  fortunately  it 
is  impossible  to  enlarge  knowledge  without,  to  some 


326  THREE  TYPES 

extent,  enlarging  life.  But  the  question  is  one  of 
directness  or  indirectness  of  aim.  The  woman's  col- 
lege puts  this  aim  in  the  foreground  side  by  side  with 
the  acquisition  of  knowledge.  By  setting  its  students 
apart  in  homogeneous  companies,  it  seeks  to  cultivate 
common  ideals.  Of  its  teaching  force,  a  large  num- 
ber are  women  who  live  with  the  students  in  the  col- 
lege buildings,  sit  with  them  at  table,  join  in  their 
festivities,  and  in  numberless  intimate  ways  share 
and  guide  the  common  life.  Every  student,  no  mat- 
ter how  large  the  college,  has  friendly  access  at  any 
time  to  several  members  of  the  faculty,  quite  apart 
from  her  relations  with  them  in  the  classroom.  In 
appointing  these  women  to  the  faculty  no  board  of 
trustees  would  consider  it  sufficient  that  a  candidate 
was  an  accomplished  specialist.  She  must  be  this,  but 
she  should  be  also  a  lady  of  unobjectionable  manners 
and  influential  character ;  she  should  have  amiability 
and  a  discreet  temper,  for  she  is  to  be  a  guiding  force 
in  a  complex  community,  continually  in  the  presence 
of  her  students,  an  officer  of  administration  and  gov- 
ernment no  less  than  of  instruction.  Harvard  and 
Johns  Hopkins  can  ask  their  pupils  to  attend  the  lec- 
tures of  a  great  scholar,  however  brusque  his  bearing 
or  unbrushed  his  hair.  They  will  not  question  their 
geniuses  too  sharply,  and  will  trust  their  students  to 
look  out  for  their  own  proprieties  of  dress,  manners, 
and  speech.  But  neither  Wellesley  nor  any  other 


OF  WOMEN'S  COLLEGES  327 

woman's  college  could  find  a  place  in  its  faculty  for 
a  woman  Sophocles  or  Sylvester.  Learning  alone  is 
not  enough  for  women. 

Not  only  in  the  appointment  of  its  teaching  body, 
but  in  all  its  appliances  the  separate  college  aims  at  a 
rounded  refinement,  at  cultivating  a  sense  of  beauty, 
at  imparting  simple  tastes  and  generous  sympathies. 
To  effect  this,  pictures  are  hung  on  the  walls,  statues 
and  flowers  decorate  the  rooms,  concerts  bring  music 
to  the  magnified  home,  and  parties  and  receptions 
are  paid  for  out  of  the  college  purse.  The  influence  of 
hundreds  of  mentally  eager  girls  upon  the  characters 
of  one  another,  when  they  live  for  four  years  in  the 
closest  daily  companionship,  is  most  interesting  to 
see.  I  have  watched  the  ennobling  process  go  on  for 
many  years  among  Wellesley  students,  and  I  am 
confident  that  no  more  healthy,  generous,  demo- 
cratic, beauty-loving,  serviceable  society  of  people 
existsthan  the  girls' college  community  affords.  That 
choicest  product  of  modern  civilization,  the  Ameri- 
can girl,  is  here  in  all  her  diverse  colors.  She  comes 
from  more  than  a  dozen  religious  denominations  and 
from  every  political  party;  from  nearly  every  state 
and  territory  in  the  Union,  and  from  the  foreign 
lands  into  which  English  and  American  missionaries, 
merchants,  or  soldiers  have  penetrated.  The  farmer's 
daughter  from  the  western  prairies  is  beside  the  child 
whose  father  owns  half  a  dozen  mill  towns  of  New 


328  THREE  TYPES 

England.  The  pride  of  a  Southern  senator's  home 
rooms  with  an  anxious  girl  who  must  borrow  all  the 
money  for  her  college  course  because  her  father's  life 
was  given  for  the  Union.  Side  by  side  in  the  boats, 
on  the  tennis- grounds,  at  the  table,  arm  in  arm  on 
the  long  walks,  debating  in  the  societies,  vigorous 
together  in  the  gymnasium  and  the  library,  girls  of 
every  grade  gather  the  rich  experiences  which  will 
tincture  their  future  toil,  and  make  the  world  per- 
petually seem  an  interesting  and  friendly  place.  They 
here  learn  to  "  see  great  things  large,  and  little  things 
small." 

This  detailed  explanation  of  the  peculiarities  of 
the  girls'  college  renders  unnecessary  any  long  dis- 
cussion of  its  strengths  and  weaknesses.  According 
to  the  point  of  view  of  the  critic  these  peculiarities 
themselves  will  be  counted  means  of  invigoration  or 
of  enfeeblement.  Living  so  close  to  one  another  as 
girls  here  do,  the  sympathetic  and  altruistic  virtues 
acquire  great  prominence.  Petty  selfishness  retreats 
or  becomes  extinct.  An  earnest,  high-minded  spirit 
is  easily  cultivated,  and  the  break  between  college  life 
and  the  life  from  which  the  student  comes  is  reduced 
to  a  minimum. 

It  is  this  very  fact  which  is  often  alleged  as  the  chief 
objection  to  the  girls'  college.  It  is  said  that  its  stu- 
dents never  escape  from  themselves  and  their  do- 
mestic standard,  that  they  do  not  readily  acquire  a 


OF  WOMEN'S  COLLEGES  329 

scientific  spirit,  and  become  individual  in  taste  and 
conduct.  Is  it  desirable  that  they  should  ?  That  I 
shall  not  undertake  to  decide.  I  have  merely  tried  to 
explain  the  kinds  of  human  work  which  the  different 
types  of  higher  training-schools  are  best  fitted  to 
effect  for  women.  Whether  the  one  or  the  other  kind 
of  work  needs  most  to  be  done  is  a  question  of  social 
ethics  which  the  future  must  answer.  I  have  set  forth 
a  type,  perhaps  in  the  endeavor  after  clearness  ex- 
aggerating a  little  its  outlines,  and  contrasting  it 
more  sharply  with  its  two  neighbor  types  than  in- 
dividual cases  would  justify.  There  are  colleges  for 
women  which  closely  approximate  in  aim  and  method 
the  colleges  for  men.  No  doubt  those  which  move 
furthest  in  the  directions- 1  have  indicated  are  capa- 
ble of  modification.  But  I  believe  what  I  have  said 
gives  a  substantially  true  account  of  an  actually  ex- 
isting type  —  a  type  powerful  in  stirring  the  enthusi- 
asm of  those  who  are  submitted  to  it,  subtle  in  its 
penetrating  influences  over  them,  and  effective  in 
winning  the  confidence  of  a  multitude  of  parents  who 
would  never  send  their  daughters  to  colleges  of  a 
different  type. 

The  third  type  is  the  "annex,"  a  recent  and  inter- 
esting experiment  in  the  education  of  girls,  whose 
future  it  is  yet  difficult  to  predict.  Only  a  few  cases 
exist,  and  as  the  Harvard  Annex  is  the  most  con- 
spicuous, by  reason  of  its  dozen  years  of  age  and 


330  THREE  TYPES 

nearly  two  hundred  students,  I  shall  describe  it  as 
the  typical  example.  In  the  Harvard  Annex  groups 
of  young  women  undertake  courses  of  study  in  classes 
whose  instruction  is  furnished  entirely  by  members 
of  the  Harvard  Faculty.  No  college  officer  is  obliged 
to  give  this  instruction,  and  the  Annex  staff  of  teach- 
ers is,  therefore,  liable  to  considerable  variation 
from  year  to  year.  Though  the  usual  four  classes 
appear  in  its  curriculum,  the  large  majority  of  its 
students  devote  themselves  to  special  subjects.  A 
wealthy  girl  turns  from  fashionable  society  to  pursue 
a  single  course  in  history  or  economics ;  a  hard-worked 
teacher  draws  inspiration  during  a  few  afternoons 
each  week  from  a  famous  Greek  or  Latin  pro- 
fessor; a  woman  who  has  been  long  familiar  with 
French  literature  explores  with  a  learned  specialist 
some  single  period  in  the  history  of  the  language. 
Because  the  opportunities  for  advanced  and  de- 
tached study  are  so  tempting,  many  ladies  living 
in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Annex  enter  one  or 
more  of  its  courses.  There  are  consequently  among 
its  students  women  much  older  than  the  average  of 
those  who  attend  the  colleges. 

The  business  arrangements  are  taken  charge  of  by 
a  committee  of  ladies  and  gentlemen,  who  provide 
classrooms,  suggest  boarding-places,  secure  the  in- 
structors, solicit  the  interest  of  the  public  —  in  short, 
manage  all  the  details  of  an  independent  institution ; 


OF  WOMEN'S  COLLEGES  331 

for  the  noteworthy  feature  of  its  relation  to  its  pow- 
erful neighbor  is  this :  that  the  two,  while  actively 
friendly,  have  no  official  or  organic  tie  whatever.  In 
the  same  city  young  men  and  young  women  of  col- 
legiate rank  are  studying  the  same  subjects  under 
the  same  instructors ;  but  there  are  two  colleges,  not 
one.  No  detail  in  the  management  of  Harvard  Col- 
lege is  changed  by  the  presence  in  Cambridge  of  the 
Harvard  Annex.  If  the  corporation  of  Harvard 
should  assume  the  financial  responsibility,  supervise 
the  government,  and  give  the  girl  graduates  degrees, 
making  no  other  changes  whatever,  the  Annex  would 
then  become  a  school  of  the  university,  about  as  dis- 
tinct from  Harvard  College  as  the  medical,  law,  or 
divinity  schools.  The  students  of  the  medical  school 
do  not  attend  the  same  lectures  or  frequent  the  same 
buildings  as  the  college  undergraduates.  The  imme- 
diate governing  boards  of  college  and  medical  school 
are  separate.  But  here  comparison  fails,  for  the  stu- 
dents of  the  professional  schools  may  elect  courses 
in  the  college  and  make  use  of  all  its  resources. 
This  the  young  women  cannot  do.  They  have  only 
the  rights  of  all  Cambridge  ladies  to  attend  the  many 
public  lectures  and  readings  of  the  university. 

The  Harvard  Annex  is,  then,  to-day  a  woman's 
college,  with  no  degrees,  no  dormitories,  no  women 
instructors,  and  with  a  staff  of  teachers  made  up 
from  volunteers  of  another  college.  The  Fay  House, 


332  THREE  TYPES 

where  offices,  lecture  and  waiting  rooms,  library  and 
laboratories  are  gathered,  is  in  the  heart  of  Old 
Cambridge,  but  at  a  little  distance  from  the  college 
buildings.  This  is  the  centre  of  the  social  and  literary 
life  of  the  students.  Here  they  gather  their  friends  at 
afternoon  teas ;  here  the  various  clubs  which  have 
sprung  up,  as  numbers  have  increased,  hold  their 
meetings  and  give  their  entertainments.  The  students 
lodge  in  all  parts  of  Cambridge  and  the  neighboring 
towns,  and  are  directly  responsible  for  their  conduct 
only  to  themselves.  The  ladies  of  the  management  are 
lavish  in  time  and  care  to  make  the  girls'  lives  happy 
and  wholesome;  the  secretary  is  always  at  hand  to 
give  advice ;  but  the  personal  life  of  the  students  is  as 
separate  and  independent  as  in  the  typical  coeduca- 
tional college. 

It  is  impossible  to  estimate  either  favorably  or 
adversely  the  permanent  worth  of  an  undertaking 
still  in  its  infancy.  Manifestly,  the  opportunities 
for  the  very  highest  training  are  here  superb,  if  they 
happen  to  exist  at  all.  In  this,  however,  is  the  incal- 
culable feature  of  the  system.  The  Annex  lives  by 
favor,  not  by  right,  and  it  is  impossible  to  predict 
what  the  extent  of  favor  may  at  any  time  be.  A  girl 
hears  that  an  admirable  course  of  lectures  has  been 
given  on  a  topic  in  which  she  is  greatly  interested. 
She  arranges  to  join  the  Annex  and  enter  the  course, 
but  learns  in  the  summer  vacation  that  through 


OF  WOMEN'S   COLLEGES  333 

pressure  of  other  work  the  professor  will  be  unable 
to  teach  in  the  Annex  the  following  year.  The  fact 
that  favor  rules,  and  not  rights,  peculiarly  hampers 
scientific  and  laboratory  courses,  and  for  its  literary 
work  obliges  the  Annex  largely  to  depend  on  its  own 
library.  Yet  when  all  these  weaknesses  are  confessed 
—  and  by  none  are  they  confessed  more  frankly  than 
by  the  wise  and  devoted  managers  of  the  Annex 
themselves  —  it  should  be  said  that  hitherto  they 
have  not  practically  hindered  the  formation  of  a  spirit 
of  scholarship,  eager,  free  and  sane  to  an  extraordi- 
nary degree.  The  Annex  girl  succeeds  in  remaining 
a  private  and  unobserved  gentlewoman,  while  still, 
in  certain  directions,  pushing  her  studies  to  an  ad- 
vanced point  seldom  reached  elsewhere. 

A  plan  in  some  respects  superficially  analogous 
to  the  American  annex  has  been  in  operation  for 
many  years  at  the  English,  and  more  recently  at  some 
of  the  Scotch  universities,  where  a  hall  or  college  for 
women  uses  many  of  the  resources  of  the  university. 
But  this  plan  is  so  complicated  with  the  peculiar 
organization  of  English  university  life  that  it  cannot 
usefully  be  discussed  here.  In  the  few  colleges  in  this 
country  where,  very  recently,  the  annex  experiment 
is  being  tried,  its  methods  vary  markedly. 

Barnard  College  in  New  York  is  an  annex  of 
Columbia  only  in  a  sense,  for  not  all  her  instruc- 
tion is  given  by  Columbia's  teaching  force,  though 


384  THREE  TYPES 

Columbia  will  confer  degrees  upon  her  graduates. 
The  new  Woman's  College  at  Cleveland  sustains 
temporarily  the  same  relations  to  Adelbert  College, 
though  to  a  still  greater  extent  she  provides  inde- 
pendent instruction. 

In  both  Barnard  and  Cleveland  women  are  en- 
gaged in  instruction  and  in  government.  Indeed, 
the  new  annexes  which  have  arisen  in  the  last  three 
years  seem  to  promise  independent  colleges  for 
women  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of,  and  in 
close  relationship  with,  older  and  better  equipped 
universities  for  men,  whose  resources  they  can  to 
some  extent  use,  whose  standards  they  can  apply, 
whose  tests  they  can  meet.  When  they  possess  a  fixed 
staff  of  teachers  they  are  not,  of  course,  liable  to 
the  instabilities  which  at  present  beset  the  Harvard 
Annex.  So  far,  however,  as  these  teachers  belong 
to  the  annex,  and  are  not  drawn  from  the  neighbor- 
ing university,  the  annex  is  assimilated  to  the  type  of 
the  ordinary  woman's  college,  and  loses  its  distinc- 
tive merits.  If  the  connection  between  it  and  the  uni- 
versity should  ever  become  so  close  that  it  had  the 
same  right  to  the  professors  as  the  university  itself, 
it  would  become  a  question  whether  the  barriers 
between  the  men's  and  the  women's  lecture  rooms 
could  be  economically  maintained. 

The  preceding  survey  has  shown  how  in  coeduca- 
tion a  woman's  study  is  carried  on  inside  a  man's  col- 


•  OF  WOMEN'S  COLLEGES  335 

lege,  in  the  women's  college  outside  it,  in  the  annex 
beside  it.  Each  of  these  situations  has  its  advantage. 
But  will  the  community  be  content  to  accept  this; 
permanently  to  forego  the  counter  advantages,  and 
even  after  it  fully  realizes  the  powers  and  limita- 
tions of  the  different  types,  firmly  to  maintain  them 
in  their  distinctive  vigor  ?  Present  indications  render 
this  improbable.  Already  coeducational  colleges  in- 
cline to  more  careful  leadership  for  their  girls.  The 
separate  colleges,  with  growing  wealth,  are  learning 
to  value  intrepidity,  and  are  carrying  their  operations 
close  up  to  the  lands  of  the  Ph.D.  The  annex  swings 
in  its  middle  air,  sometimes  inclining  to  the  one  side, 
sometimes  to  the  other.  And  outside  them  all,  the 
great  body  of  men's  colleges  continually  find  it  harder 
to  maintain  their  isolation,  and  extend  one  privilege 
after  another  to  the  seeking  sex. 

The  result  of  all  these  diversities  is  the  most  in- 
structive body  of  experiment  that  the  world  has  seen 
for  determining  the  best  ways  of  bringing  woman  to 
her  powers.  While  the  public  mind  is  so  uncertain,  so 
liable  to  panic,  and  so  doubtful  whether,  after  all, 
it  is  not  better  for  a  girl  to  be  a  goose,  the  many  meth- 
ods of  education  assist  one  another  mightily  in  their 
united  warfare  against  ignorance,  selfish  privileges, 
and  antiquated  ideals.  It  is  well  that  for  a  good  while 
to  come  woman's  higher  education  should  be  all 
things  to  all  mothers,  if  by  any  means  it  may  save 


336  WOMEN'S    COLLEGES 

girls.  Those  who  are  hardy  enough  may  continue 
to  mingle  their  girls  with  men;  while  a  parent  who 
would  be  shocked  that  her  daughter  should  do  any- 
thing so  ambiguous  as  to  enter  a  man's  college  may 
be  persuaded  to  send  her  to  a  girls'.  Those  who  find 
it  easier  to  honor  an  old  university  than  the  eager  life 
of  a  young  college,  may  be  tempted  into  an  annex. 
The  important  thing  is  that  the  adherents  of  these 
differing  types  should  not  fall  into  jealousy,  and  be- 
little the  value  of  those  who  are  performing  a  work 
which  they  themselves  cannot  do  so  well.  To  under- 
stand one  another  kindly  is  the  business  of  the  hour 
—  to  understand  and  to  wait. 


XIV 

WOMEN'S   EDUCATION   IN   THE   NINETEENTH 
CENTURY1 

ONE  of  the  most  distinctive  and  far-reaching 
movements  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  that  which 
has  brought  about  the  present  large  opportunities 
for  the  higher  education  of  women.  Confining  itself 
to  no  country,  this  vast  movement  has  advanced 
rapidly  in  some,  slowly  and  timidly  in  others.  In 
America  three  broad  periods  mark  its  progress :  first, 
the  period  of  quiescence,  which  ends  about  1830; 
second,  the  period  of  agitation,  ending  with  the  civil 
war;  the  third,  though  far  as  yet  from  completion, 
may  be  called  the  period  of  accomplishment. 

For  the  first  two  hundred  years  in  the  history  of 
our  country  little  importance  was  attached  to  the 
education  of  women,  though  before  the  nineteenth 
century  began,  twenty-four  colleges  had  been  founded 
for  the  education  of  men.  In  the  early  years  of  this 
century  private  schools  for  girls  were  expensive  and 
short-lived.  The  common  schools  were  the  only 
grades  of  public  instruction  open  to  young  women. 
In  the  cities  of  Massachusetts,  where  more  was  done 

1  Published  in  The  New  York  Evening  Post,  1900. 


338  WOMEN'S  EDUCATION 

for  the  education  of  boys  than  elsewhere,  girls  were 
allowed  to  go  to  school  only  a  small  part  of  the  year, 
and  in  some  places  could  even  then  use  the  school- 
room only  in  the  early  hours  of  the  day,  or  on 
those  afternoons  when  the  boys  had  a  half-holiday. 
Anything  like  a  careful  training  of  girls  was  not 
yet  thought  of. 

This  comparative  neglect  of  women  is  less  to  be 
wondered  at  when  we  remember  that  the  colleges 
which  existed  at  the  beginning  of  this  century  had 
been  founded  to  fit  men  for  the  learned  professions, 
chiefly  for  the  ministry.  Neither  here  nor  elsewhere 
was  it  customary  to  give  advanced  education  to  boys 
destined  for  business.  The  country,  too,  was  im- 
poverished by  the  long  struggle  for  independence. 
The  Government  was  bankrupt,  unable  to  pay  its 
veteran  soldiers.  Irritation  and  unrest  were  every- 
where prevalent  until  the  ending  of  the  second  war 
with  England,  in  1815.  Immediately  succeeding  this 
began  that  great  migration  to  the  West  and  South- 
west which  carried  thousands  of  the  most  ambitious 
young  men  and  women  from  the  East  to  push  our 
frontiers  farther  and  farther  into  the  wilderness. 
Even  in  the  older  parts  of  the  country  the  population 
was  widely  scattered.  The  people  lived  for  the  most 
part  in  villages  and  isolated  farms.  City  life  was  un- 
common. As  late  as  1840  only  nine  per  cent  of  the 
population  was  living  in  cities  of  8000  or  more  inhab- 


IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY     339 

itants.  Under  such  conditions  nothing  more  than 
the  bare  necessities  of  education  could  be  regarded. 

But  this  very  isolation  bred  a  kind  of  equality.  In 
district  schools  it  became  natural  for  boys  and  girls 
to  study  together  and  to  receive  the  same  instruction 
from  teachers  who  were  often  young  and  enthusiastic. 
These  were  as  a  rule  college  students,  granted  long 
winter  vacations  from  their  own  studies  that  they 
might  earn  money  by  teaching  village  schools.  Thus 
most  young  women  shared  with  their  brothers  the 
best  elementary  training  the  country  afforded,  while 
college  education  was  reserved  for  the  few  young  men 
who  were  preparing  for  the  ministry  or  for  some 
other  learned  profession. 

From  the  beginning  it  had  been  the  general  cus- 
tom of  this  country  to  educate  boys  and  girls  together 
up  to  the  college  age.  To-day  in  less  than  six  per 
cent  of  all  our  cities  is  there  any  separate  provision  of 
schools  for  boys  and  girls.  This  habitual  early  start 
together  has  made  it  natural  for  our  men  and  women 
subsequently  to  read  the  same  books,  to  have  the 
same  tastes  and  interests,  and  jointly  to  approve  a 
large  social  freedom.  On  the  whole,  women  have 
usually  had  more  leisure  than  men  for  the  cultivating 
of  scholarly  tastes. 

The  first  endowment  of  the  higher  education  of 
women  in  this  country  was  made  by  the  Moravians 
in  the  seminary  for  girls  which  they  founded  at  Beth- 


340  WOMEN'S  EDUCATION 

lehem,  Pennsylvania,  in  1749.  They  founded  an- 
other girls'  seminary  at  Lititz  in  1794.  Though  both 
of  these  honorable  foundations  continue  in  effect- 
ive operation  to-day,  their  influence  has  been  for 
the  most  part  confined  to  the  religious  communion 
of  their  founders.  In  1804  an  academy  with  wider 
connections  was  founded  at  Bradford,  Massachu- 
setts, at  first  open  to  boys  and  girls,  since  1836 
limited  to  girls.  From  that  time  academies  and  sem- 
inaries for  girls  increased  rapidly.  One  of  the  most 
notable  was  Troy  Seminary,  founded  by  Emma  Hart 
Willard  and  chartered  in  1819.  Miss  Willard  drew 
up  broad  and  original  plans  for  the  higher  educa- 
tion of  girls,  laid  them  before  President  Monroe, 
appealed  to  the  New  York  Legislature  for  aid,  and 
dreamed  of  establishing  something  like  collegiate 
training.  More  than  three  hundred  students  en- 
tered her  famous  seminary,  and  for  seventeen  years 
she  carried  it  on  with  growing  reputation.  Her  ad- 
dress to  the  President  in  1819  is  still  a  strong  state- 
ment of  the  importance  to  the  republic  of  an  en- 
lightened and  disciplined  womanhood. 

Even  more  influential  was  the  life  and  work  of 
Mary  Lyon,  who  in  1837  founded  Mount  Holyoke 
Seminary,  and  labored  for  the  education  of  women 
until  her  death,  in  1849.  Of  strong  religious  nature, 
great  courage  and  resource,  she  went  up  and  down 
New  England  securing  funds  and  pupils.  Her  rare 


IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY    341 

gift  of  inspiring  both  men  and  women  induced  wide 
acceptance  of  her  ideals  of  character  and  intelligence. 
Seminaries  patterned  after  Mount  Holyoke  sprang 
up  all  over  the  land,  and  still  remain  as  centres  of 
powerful  influence,  particularly  in  the  Middle  West 
and  on  the  Pacific  Coast. 

With  this  development,  through  the  endowment 
of  many  excellent  seminaries,  of  the  primary  educa- 
tion of  girls  into  something  like  secondary  or  high- 
school  opportunities,  the  period  of  quiescence  comes 
to  an  end.  There  follows  a  period  of  agitation  when 
the  full  privilege  of  college  training  side  by  side  with 
men  was  demanded  for  women.  This  agitation  was 
closely  connected  on  the  one  hand  with  the  anti- 
slavery  movement  and  the  general  passion  for  moral 
reform  at  that  time  current;  and,  on  the  other,  with 
the  interest  in  teaching  and  that  study  of  its  methods 
which  Horace  Mann  fostered.  From  1830  to  1865 
it  was  becoming  evident  that  women  were  destined 
to  have  a  large  share  in  the  instruction  of  children. 
For  this  work  they  sought  to  fit  themselves,  and  the 
reformers  aided  them.  Oberlin  College,  which  began 
as  a  collegiate  institute  in  1833,  was  in  1850  char- 
tered as  a  college.  From  the  beginning  it  admitted 
women,  and  in  1841  three  women  took  its  diploma. 
Antioch  College,  under  Horace  Mann's  leadership, 
opened  in  1853,  admitting  women  on  equal  terms 
with  men.  In  1855  Elmira  College  was  founded,  the 


342  WOMEN'S  EDUCATION 

first  institution  chartered  as  a  separate  college  for 
women. 

Even  before  the  Civil  War  the  commercial  interests 
of  the  country  had  become  so  much  extended  that 
trade  was  rising  into  a  dignity  comparable  to  that  of 
the  learned  professions.  Men  were  more  and  more 
deserting  teaching  for  the  business  life,  and  their 
places,  at  first  chiefly  in  the  lower  grades,  were  being 
filled  by  women.  During  the  five  years  of  the  war 
this  supersession  of  men  by  women  teachers  ad- 
vanced rapidly.  It  has  since  acquired  such  impetus 
that  at  present  more  than  two  thirds  of  the  training 
of  the  young  of  both  sexes  below  the  college  grade 
has  fallen  out  of  the  hands  of  men.  In  the  mean 
time,  too,  though  in  smaller  numbers,  women  have 
invaded  the  other  professions  and  have  even  entered 
into  trade.  These  demonstrations  of  a  previously 
unsuspected  capacity  have  been  both  the  cause  and 
the  effect  of  enlarged  opportunities  for  mental  equip- 
ment. The  last  thirty  or  forty  years  have  seen  the 
opening  of  that  new  era  in  women's  education  which 
I  have  ventured  to  call  the  period  of  accomplishment. 

From  the  middle  of  the  century  the  movement  to 
open  the  state  universities  to  women,  to  found  col- 
leges for  men  and  women  on  equal  terms,  and  to 
establish  independent  colleges  for  women  spread 
rapidly.  From  their  first  organization  the  state  uni- 
versities of  Utah  (1850),  Iowa  (1856),  Washington 


IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY    343 

(1862),  Kansas  (1866),  Minnesota  (1868),  Nebraska 
(1871)  admitted  women.  Indiana,  founded  in  1820, 
opened  its  doors  to  women  in  1868,  and  was  followed 
in  1870  by  Michigan,  at  that  time  the  largest  and  far 
the  most  influential  of  all  the  state  universities.  From 
that  time  the  movement  became  general.  The  ex- 
ample of  Michigan  was  followed  until  at  the  present 
time  all  the  colleges  and  universities  of  the  West, 
excepting  those  under  Catholic  management,  are 
open  to  women.  The  only  state  university  in  the  East, 
that  of  Maine,  admitted  women  in  1872.  Virginia, 
Georgia,  and  Louisiana  alone  among  all  the  state 
universities  of  the  country  remain  closed  to  women. 
This  sudden  opening  to  women  of  practically  all 
universities  supported  by  public  funds  is  not  more 
extraordinary  than  the  immense  endowments  which 
during  the  same  period  have  been  put  into  independ- 
ent colleges  for  women,  or  into  colleges  which  admit 
men  and  women  on  equal  terms.  Of  these  privately 
endowed  colleges,  Cornell,  originally  founded  for 
men,  led  the  way  in  1872  in  opening  its  doors  to  wo- 
men. The  West  and  South  followed  rapidly,  the  East 
more  slowly.  Of  the  480  colleges  which  at  the  end 
of  the  century  are  reported  by  the  Bureau  of  Educa- 
tion, 336  admit  women;  or,  excluding  the  Catholic 
colleges,  80  per  cent  of  all  are  open  to  women.  Of 
the  sixty  leading  colleges  in  the  United  States  there 
are  only  ten  in  which  women  are  not  admitted  to 


344  WOMEN'S  EDUCATION 

some  department.  These  ten  are  all  on  the  Atlantic 
seaboard  and  are  all  old  foundations. 

This  substantial  accomplishment  during  the  last 
forty  years  of  the  right  of  women  to  a  college  educa- 
tion has  not,  however,  resulted  in  fixing  a  single  type 
of  college  in  which  that  education  shall  be  obtained. 
On  the  contrary,  three  clearly  contrasted  types  now 
exist  side  by  side.  These  are  the  independent  college, 
the  coeducational  college,  and  the  affiliated  college. 

To  the  independent  college  for  women  men  are 
not  admitted,  though  the  grade,  the  organization, 
and  the  general  aim  are  supposed  to  be  the  same  as 
in  the  colleges  exclusively  for  men.  The  first  college 
of  this  type,  Elmira  (1855),  has  been  already  men- 
tioned. The  four  largest  women's  colleges  —  Vassar, 
opened  in  1861;  Smith,  in  1875;  Wellesley,  in  1875, 
and  Bryn  Mawr,  in  1885  —  take  rank  among  the 
sixty  leading  colleges  of  the  country  in  wealth,  equip- 
ment, teachers  and  students,  and  variety  of  studies 
offered.  Wells  College,  chartered  as  a  college  in  1870, 
the  Woman's  College  of  Baltimore,  opened  in  1888, 
and  Mt.  Holvoke,  reorganized  as  a  college  in  1893, 
have  also  large  endowments  and  attendance.  All  the 
women's  colleges  are  empowered  to  confer  the  same 
degrees  as  are  given  in  the  men's  colleges. 

The  development  of  coeducation,  the  prevailing 
type  of  education  in  the  United  States  for  both  men 
and  women,  has  already  been  sufficiently  described. 


IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY    345 

In  coeducational  colleges  men  and  women  have  the 
same  instructors,  recite  in  the  same  classes,  and  en- 
joy the  same  freedom  in  choice  of  studies.  To  the 
faculties  of  these  colleges  women  are  occasionally 
appointed,  and,  like  their  male  colleagues,  teach 
mixed  classes  of  men  and  women.  Many  coedu- 
cational colleges  are  without  halls  of  residence. 
Where  these  exist,  special  buildings  are  assigned  to 
the  women  students. 

The  affiliated  colleges,  while  exclusively  for  women, 
are  closely  connected  with  strong  colleges  for  men, 
whose  equipment  and  opportunities  they  are  ex- 
pected in  some  degree  to  share.  At  present  there  are 
five  such:  Radcliffe  College,  the  originator  of  this 
type,  connected  with  Harvard  University,  and  opened 
in  1879;  Sophie  Newcomb  Memorial  College,  at 
Tulane  University,  opened  in  1886;  the  College  for 
Women  of  Western  Reserve  University,  1888;  Bar- 
nard College,  at  Columbia  University,  1889;  the 
Woman's  College  of  Brown  University,  1892.  In  all 
these  colleges  the  standards  for  entrance  and  gradu- 
ation are  the  same  as  those  exacted  from  men  in  the 
universities  with  which  they  are  affiliated.  To  a  con- 
siderable extent  the  instructors  also  are  the  same. 

During  the  last  quarter-century  many  professional 
schools  have  been  opened  to  women  —  schools  of 
theology,  law,  medicine,  dentistry,  pharmacy,  tech- 
nology, agriculture.  The  number  of  women  entering 


346  WOMEN'S  EDUCATION 

these  professions  is  rapidly  increasing.  Since  1890 
the  increase  of  women  students  in  medicine  is  64  per 
cent,  in  dentistry  205  per  cent,  in  pharmacy  190  per 
cent,  in  technology  and  agriculture  194  per  cent. 

While  this  great  advance  has  been  accomplished 
in  America,  women  in  England  and  on  the  Continent, 
especially  during  the  last  thirty  years,  have  been 
demanding  better  education.  Though  much  more 
slowly  and  in  fewer  numbers  than  in  this  country, 
they  have  everywhere  succeeded  in  securing  decided 
advantages.  No  country  now  refuses  them  a  share  in 
liberal  study,  in  the  instruction  of  young  children, 
and  in  the  profession  of  medicine.  As  might  be  ex- 
pected, English-speaking  women,  far  more  than  any 
others,  have  won  and  used  the  opportunities  of  uni- 
versity training.  Since  1860  women  have  been  study- 
ing at  Cambridge,  England,  and  since  1879  at  Ox- 
ford. At  these  ancient  seats  of  learning  they  have 
now  every  privilege  except  the  formal  degree.  To 
all  other  English  and  Scotch  universities,  and  to  the 
universities  of  the  British  colonies,  women  are  ad- 
mitted, and  from  them  they  receive  degrees. 

In  the  most  northern  countries  of  Europe  —  in 
Iceland,  Finland,  Norway,  Sweden,  Denmark  —  the 
high  schools  and  universities  are  freely  open  to  wo- 
men. In  eastern  Europe  able  women  have  made 
efforts  to  secure  advanced  study,  and  these  efforts 
have  been  most  persistent  in  Russia  and  since  the 


IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY    347 

Crimean  war.  When  denied  in  their  own  land,  Rus- 
sian women  have  flocked  to  the  Swiss  and  French 
universities,  and  have  even  gone  in  considerable 
numbers  to  Finland  and  to  Italy.  Now  Russia  is 
slowly  responding  to  its  women's  entreaties.  During 
the  last  ten  years  the  universities  of  Rumania,  Bul- 
garia, Hungary,  and  Greece  have  been  open  to  wo- 
men ;  while  in  Constantinople  the  American  College 
for  Girls  offers  the  women  of  the  East  the  systematic 
training  of  the  New  England  type  of  college.  In 
western,  central,  and  southern  Europe  all  university 
doors  are  open.  In  these  countries,  degrees  and  hon- 
ors may  everywhere  be  had  by  women,  except  in 
Germany  and  Austria.  Even  here,  by  special  per- 
mission of  the  Minister  of  Education,  or  the  pro- 
fessor in  charge,  women  may  hear  lectures.  Each 
year,  too,  more  women  are  granted  degrees  by  spe- 
cial vote  and  as  exceptional  cases. 

In  brief,  it  may  be  said  that  practically  all  Euro- 
pean universities  are  now  open  to  women.  No  Ameri- 
can woman  of  scholarship,  properly  qualified  for  the 
work  she  undertakes,  need  fear  refusal  if  she  seeks 
the  instruction  of  the  greatest  European  scholars 
in  her  chosen  field.  Each  year  American  women  are 
taking  with  distinction  the  highest  university  degrees 
of  the  Continent.  To  aid  them,  many  fellowships  and 
graduate  scholarships,  ranging  in  value  from  $300  to 
$1000,  are  offered  for  foreign  study  by  our  colleges 


348  WOMEN'S  EDUCATION 

for  women  and  by  private  associations  of  women  who 
seek  to  promote  scholarship.  Large  numbers  of  am- 
bitious young  women  who  are  preparing  themselves 
for  teaching  or  for  the  higher  fields  of  scientific  re- 
search annually  compete  for  this  aid.  Three  years 
ago  an  association  was  formed  for  maintaining  an 
American  woman's  table  in  the  Zoological  Station 
at  Naples.  By  paying  $500  a  year  they  are  thus  able 
to  grant  to  selected  students  the  most  favorable  con- 
ditions for  biological  investigation.  This  association 
has  also  just  offered  a  prize  of  $1000,  to  be  granted 
two  years  hence,  for  the  best  piece  of  original  scien- 
tific work  done  in  the  mean  time  by  a  woman.  The 
American  Schools  of  Classical  Studies  in  Athens  and 
Rome  admit  women  on  the  same  terms  as  men,  and 
award  their  fellowships  to  men  and  women  indiffer- 
ently. One  of  these  fellowships,  amounting  to  $1000 
a  year,  has  just  been  won  by  a  woman. 

The  experience,  then,  of  the  last  thirty  years  shows 
a  condition  of  women's  education  undreamed  of  at 
the  beginning  of  the  century.  It  shows  that  though 
still  hampered  here  and  there  by  timorous  restrictions, 
women  are  in  substantial  possession  of  much  the 
same  opportunities  as  are  available  for  men.  It  shows 
that  they  have  both  the  capacity  and  the  desire  for 
college  training,  that  they  can  make  profitable  and 
approved  use  of  it  when  obtained,  and  that  they  are 
eager  for  that  broader  and  more  original  study  after 


IN  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY    349 

college  work  is  over  which  is  at  once  the  most  novel 
and  the  most  glorious  feature  of  university  education 
to-day.  Indeed,  women  have  taken  more  than  their 
due  proportion  of  the  prizes,  honors,  and  fellowships 
which  have  been  accessible  to  them  on  the  same 
terms  as  to  men.  Their  resort  to  institutions  of  higher 
learning  has  increased  far  more  than  that  of  men. 
In  1872  the  total  number  of  college  students  in  each 
million  of  population  was  590.  Last  year  it  had  risen 
to  1270,  much  more  than  doubling  in  twenty-seven 
years.  During  this  time  the  number  of  men  had 
risen  from  540  to  947,  or  had  not  quite  doubled.  The 
women  rose  from  50  in  1872  to  323  in  1899,  having 
increased  their  former  proportional  number  more 
than  six  times,  and  this  advance  has  also  been  main- 
tained in  graduate  and  professional  schools. 

The  immensity  of  the  change  which  the  last  century 
has  wrought  in  women's  education  may  best  be  seen 
by  setting  side  by  side  the  conditions  at  its  beginning 
and  at  its  close.  In  1800  no  colleges  for  women  ex- 
isted, and  only  two  endowed  schools  for  girls  —  these 
belonging  to  a  small  German  sect.  They  had  no  high 
schools,  and  the  best  grammar  schools  in  cities  were 
open  to  them  only  under  restrictions.  The  com- 
moner grammar  and  district  schools,  and  an  occa- 
sional private  school  dedicated  to  "accomplish- 
ments," were  their  only  avenues  to  learning.  There 
was  little  hostility  to  their  education,  since  it  was 


350  WOMEN'S  EDUCATION 

generally  assumed  by  men  and  by  themselves  that 
intellectual  matters  did  not  concern  them.  No  pro- 
fession was  open  to  them,  not  even  that  of  teaching, 
and  only  seven  possible  trades  and  occupations. 

In  1900  a  third  of  all  the  college  students  in  the 
United  States  are  women.  Sixty  per  cent  of  the  pupils 
in  the  secondary  schools,  both  public  and  private,  are 
girls  —  i.  e.  more  girls  are  preparing  for  college  than 
boys.  Women  having  in  general  more  leisure  than 
men,  there  is  reason  to  expect  that  there  will  soon 
be  more  women  than  men  in  our  colleges  and  gradu- 
ate schools.  The  time,  too,  has  passed  when  girls 
went  to  college  to  prepare  themselves  solely  for  teach- 
ing or  for  other  bread-winning  occupations.  In  con- 
siderable numbers  they  now  seek  intellectual  re- 
sources and  the  enrichment  of  their  private  lives. 
Thus  far  between  50  and  60  per  cent  of  women  col- 
lege graduates  have  at  some  time  taught.  In  the 
country  at  large  more  than  70  per  cent  of  the  teach- 
ing is  done  by  women,  in  the  North  Atlantic  portion 
over  80  per  cent.  Even  in  the  secondary  schools, 
public  and  private,  more  women  than  men  are  teach- 
ing, though  in  all  other  countries  the  advanced  in- 
struction of  boys  is  exclusively  in  the  hands  of  men. 
Never  before  has  a  nation  intrusted  all  the  school 
training  of  the  vast  majority  of  its  future  population, 
men  as  well  as  women,  to  women  alone. 


XV 
WOMEN'S  EDUCATION   AT  THE   WORLD'S   FAIR1 

FEW  persons  have  stood  in  the  Court  of  Honor  at 
Chicago  and  felt  the  surpassing  splendors  gathered 
there,  without  a  certain  dismay  over  its  swiftly  ap- 
proaching disappearance.  Never  in  the  world  before 
has  beauty  been  so  lavish  and  so  transient.  Probably 
in  all  departments  of  the  Fair  a  hundred  million  dol- 
lars have  been  spent.  Now  the  nation's  holiday  is 
done,  the  little  half-year  is  over,  and  the  palaces  with 
their  widely  gathered  treasures  vanish  like  a  dream. 
Is  all  indeed  gone?  Will  nothing  remain?  Wise 
observers  perceive  some  permanent  results  of  the 
merry-making.  What  these  will  be  in  the  busy  life 
of  men,  others  may  decide :  I  point  out  chiefly  a  few 
of  the  beneficial  influences  of  the  great  Fair  on  the 
life  of  women. 

The  triumph  of  women  in  what  may  be  called  their 
detached  existence,  that  is,  in  their  guidance  of  them- 
selves and  the  separated  affairs  of  their  sex,  has  been 
unexpectedly  great.  The  Government  appointed  an 
independent  Board  of  Lady  Managers  who,  through 
many  difficulties,  gathered  from  every  quarter  of  the 
globe  interesting  exhibits  of  feminine  industry  and 
1  Published  in  The  Forum  for  December,  1891. 


352  WOMEN'S  EDUCATION 

skill.  These  they  gracefully  disposed  in  one  of  the 
most  dignified  buildings  of  the  Fair,  itself  a  woman's 
design.  Here  they  attractively  illustrated  every  aspect 
of  the  life  of  women,  domestic,  philanthropic,  com- 
mercial, literary,  artistic,  and  traced  their  historic 
advance.  Close  at  hand,  in  another  building  also  of 
their  own  erection,  they  appropriately  appeared  as 
the  guardians  and  teachers  of  little  children.  Their 
halls  were  crowded,  their  dinners  praised,  their  recep- 
tion invitations  coveted.  Throughout  they  showed 
organizing  ability  on  a  huge  scale;  they  developed 
noteworthy  leaders;  what  is  more,  they  followed 
them,  and  they  have  quarrelled  no  more,  and  have 
pulled  wires  less,  than  men  in  similar  situations; 
their  courage,  their  energy,  their  tact  in  the  erection 
of  a  monument  to  woman  were  astonishing ;  and  the 
efforts  of  their  Central  Board  were  efficiently  seconded 
by  similar  companies  in  every  state.  As  in  the  Sani- 
tary and  Christian  Commissions  and  the  hospital 
service  of  the  war,  in  the  multitude  of  women's  clubs, 
the  Woman's  Christian  Temperance  Union,  the 
King's  Daughters,  the  associations  for  promoting 
women's  suffrage,  so  once  more  here  women  found 
an  opportunity  to  prove  their  ability  as  a  banded  sex  ; 
and  it  is  clear  that  they  awakened  in  the  nation  a 
deeper  respect  for  their  powers. 

But  the  very  triumph  does  away  with  its  further 
necessity.   Having  amply  proved  what  they  can  do 


AT  THE  WORLD'S  FAIR  353 

when  banded  together,  women  may  now  the  more 
easily  cease  to  treat  themselves  as  a  peculiar  people. 
Henceforth  they  are  human  beings.  Women's  build- 
ings, women's  exhibits,  may  safely  become  things  of 
the  past.  At  any  future  fair  no  special  treatment  of 
women  is  likely  to  be  called  for.  After  what  has 
been  achieved,  the  self -consciousness  of  women  will 
be  lessened,  and  their  sensitiveness  about  their  own 
position,  capacity,  and  rights  will  be  naturally  out- 
grown. The  anthropologist  may  perhaps  still  assem- 
ble the  work  of  a  single  sex,  the  work  of  people  of  a 
single  color,  or  of  those  having  blue  eyes.  But  ordi- 
nary people  will  find  less  and  less  interest  in  these 
artificial  classifications,  and  will  more  and  more 
incline  to  measure  men's  and  women's  products  by 
the  same  scale.  Even  at  Chicago  large  numbers  of 
women  preferred  to  range  their  exhibits  in  the  com- 
mon halls  rather  than  under  feminine  banners,  and 
their  demonstration  of  the  needlessness  of  any  special 
treatment  of  their  sex  must  be  reckoned  as  one  of  the 
most  considerable  of  the  permanent  gains  for  women 
from  the  Fair. 

If,  then,  women  have  demonstrated  that  they  are 
more  than  isolated  phenomena,  that  they  should 
indeed  be  treated  as  integral  members  of  the  human 
family,  in  order  to  estimate  rightly  the  lasting  advan- 
tages they  have  derived  from  the  Fair  we  must  seek 
those  advantages  not  in  isolations  but  in  conjunctions. 


354  WOMEN'S  EDUCATION 

In  the  common  life  of  man  there  is  a  womanly  side 
and  a  manly  side.  Both  have  profited  by  one  splen- 
did event.  Manufactures  and  transportation  and 
mining  and  agriculture  will  hereafter  be  different 
because  of  what  has  occurred  at  Chicago ;  but  so  will 
domestic  science,  the  training  of  the  young,  the  swift 
intellectual  interest,  the  finer  patriotism,  the  ap- 
prehension of  beauty,  the  moral  balance.  It  is  by 
growth  in  these  things  that  the  emancipation  of 
women  is  to  come  about,  and  the  Fair  has  fostered 
them  all  in  an  extraordinary  degree. 

Although  the  Fair  was  officially  known  as  a  World's 
Fair,  and  it  did  contain  honorable  contributions  from 
many  foreign  countries,  it  was,  in  a  sense  that  no  other 
exhibition  has  been  before,  a  nation's  fair.  It  was  the 
climacteric  expression  of  America's  existence.  It 
gathered  together  our  past  and  our  present,  and  indi- 
cated not  uncertainly  our  future.  Here  were  made 
visible  our  beginnings,  our  achievements,  our  hopes, 
our  dreams.  The  nation  became  conscious  of  itself 
and  was  strong,  beautiful,  proud.  All  sections  of  the 
country  not  only  contributed  their  most  characteristic 
objects  of  use  and  beauty,  but  their  inhabitants  also 
came,  and  learned  to  know  one  another,  and  their 
land.  During  the  last  two  years  there  has  hardly  been 
a  village  in  the  country  which  has  not  had  its  club  or 
circle  studying  the  history  of  the  United  States.  No 
section  has  been  too  poor  to  subscribe  money  for 


AT  THE  WORLD'S  FAIR  355 

maintaining  national  or  state  pride.  In  order  to  see 
the  great  result,  men  have  mortgaged  their  farms, 
lonely  women  have  taken  heavy  life  insurance,  strin- 
gent economy  will  gladly  be  practised  for  years.  A 
friend  tells  me  that  she  saw  an  old  man,  as  he  left 
the  Court  of  Honor  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  turn  to  his 
gray-haired  wife  and  say,  "  Well,  Susan,  it  paid  even 
if  it  did  take  all  the  burial  money." 

Once  before,  we  reached  a  similar  pitch  of  national 
consciousness,  —  in  war.  Young,  unprepared,  di- 
vided against  ourselves,  we  found  ourselves  able  to 
mass  great  armies,  endure  long  strains,  organize 
campaigns,  commissariats,  hospitals,  in  altogether 
independent  ways,  and  on  a  scale  greater  than  Europe 
had  seen.  Then  men  and  women  alike  learned  the 
value  of  mutual  confidence,  the  strength  of  coopera- 
tion and  organization.  Once  again  now,  but  this  time 
in  the  interest  of  beauty  and  of  peace,  we  have  studied 
the  art  of  subordinating  fragmentary  interests  to  those 
of  a  whole.  The  training  we  have  received  as  a  na- 
tion in  producing  and  studying  the  Fair,  must  result 
in  a  deeper  national  dignity,  which  will  both  free  us 
from  irritating  sensitiveness  over  foreign  criticism, 
and  give  us  readiness  to  learn  from  other  countries 
whatever  lessons  they  can  teach.  Our  own  provinces 
too  will  become  less  provincial.  With  increased  ac- 
quaintance, the  East  has  begun  to  drop  its  toleration 
of  the  West,  and  to  put  friendliness  and  honor  in  its 


356  WOMEN'S  EDUCATION 

place.  No  more  will  it  be  believed  along  the  Atlantic 
coast  that  the  Mississippi  Valley  cares  only  for 
pork,  grain  and  lumber.  As  such  superstitions  decay, 
a  more  trustful  unity  becomes  possible.  The  entire 
nation  knows  itself  a  nation,  possessed  of  common 
ideals.  In  this  heightened  national  dignity,  women 
will  have  a  large  and  ennobling  share. 

But  further,  from  the  Fair  men,  and  women  with 
them,  have  acquired  a  new  sense  of  the  gains  that 
come  from  minute  obedience  to  law.  Hitherto,  "go 
as  you  please  "  has  been  pretty  largely  the  principle 
of  American  life.  In  the  training  school  of  the  last 
two  years  of  preparation  and  the  six  months  of  the 
holding  of  the  Fair,  our  people,  particularly  our 
women,  have  been  solidly  taught  the  hard  and  need- 
ful lesson  that  whims,  waywardness,  haste,  inaccu- 
racy, pettiness,  personal  considerations,  do  not  make 
for  strength.  Wherever  these  have  entered,  they  have 
flawed  the  beautiful  whole,  and  flecked  the  honor  of 
us  all.  Where  they  have  been  absent  results  have 
appeared  which  make  us  all  rejoice.  Never  in  so  wide 
an  undertaking  was  the  unity  of  a  single  design  so 
triumphant.  As  an  unknown  multitude  cooperated 
in  the  building  of  a  mediaeval  cathedral,  so  through- 
out our  land  multitudes  have  been  daily  ready  to 
•  contribute  their  unmarked  best  for  the  erection  of  a 
common  glory.  We  have  thus  learned  to  prize  second 
thoughts  above  first  thoughts,  to  league  our  lives  and 


AT  THE  WORLD'S  FAIR  357 

purposes  with  those  of  others,  and  to  subordinate 
the  assertion  of  ourselves  to  that  of  a  universal  rea- 
son. Hence  has  sprung  a  new  trust  in  one  another  and 
a  new  confidence  in  our  future.  The  friendliness  of 
our  people,  already  rendered  natural  by  our  demo- 
cratic institutions,  has  received  a  deeper  sanction. 
How  distinctly  it  was  marked  on  the  faces  of  the  vis- 
itors at  the  Fair !  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  spend 
several  hours  there  on  Chicago  Day,  when  nearly 
seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  people  were  ad- 
mitted. The  appearance  of  those  plain,  intelligent, 
happy,  helpful  thousands,  all  strangers  and  all  kind, 
was  the  most  encouraging  sight  one  woman  had  at 
the  Fair.  It  has  been  said  that  the  moral  education  of 
a  child  consists  in  imparting  to  him  the  three  quali- 
ties, obedience,  sympathy,  dignity.  These  all  have 
been  taught  by  the  Fair,  and  women,  more  swiftly 
perceptive  than  men,  have  probably  learned  their 
lesson  best. 

One  more  profound  effect  of  the  Fair  upon  human 
character  must  be  mentioned,  on  character  in  those 
features  which  are  of  especial  importance  to  women. 
Our  people  have  here  gained  a  new  sense  of  beauty, 
and  of  beauty  at  its  highest  and  rarest,  not  the  beauty 
of  ornament  and  decoration,  but  that  of  proportion, 
balance,  and  ordered  suitability  of  parts.  Every  girl 
likes  pretty  things,  but  the  rational  basis  of  beauty 
in  the  harmonious  expression  of  use,  and  in  furnish- 


358  WOMEN'S  EDUCATION 

ing  to  the  eye  the  quiet  satisfaction  of  its  normal  de- 
mands, seldom  attracts  attention.  At  Chicago  these 
things  became  apparent.  Each  building  outwardly 
announced  its  inner  purpose.  Each  gained  its  effect 
mainly  by  outline  and  balance  of  masses  rather  than 
by  richness  of  detail.  Each  was  designed  in  reference 
to  its  site  and  to  its  neighbor  buildings.  Almost 
every  one  rested  the  eye  which  it  still  stimulated. 
Color,  form,  purpose,  proportion,  sculpture,  vegeta- 
tion, stretches  of  water,  the  brown  earth,  all  cooper- 
ated toward  the  happy  effect.  What  visitor  could  see 
it  and  not  have  begotten  in  him  the  demand  for 
beauty  in  his  own  surroundings  ?  It  is  said  that  the 
Centennial  Exhibition  affected  the  domestic  archi- 
tecture and  the  household  decoration  of  the  whole 
eastern  seaboard.  The  Fair  will  do  the  same,  but  it 
will  bring  about  a  beauty  of  a  higher,  simpler  sort. 
In  people  from  every  section,  artistic  taste  has  been 
developed,  or  even  created;  and  not  only  in  their 
houses,  but  in  the  architecture  of  their  public  build- 
ings and  streets  shall  we  see  the  results  of  this  vision 
of  the  White  City  by  the  Lake.  Huddled  houses  in 
incongruous  surroundings  will  become  less  common. 
At  heart  we  Americans  are  idealists,  and  at  a  time 
when  the  general  wealth  is  rapidly  increasing,  it  is 
an  indescribable  gain  to  have  had  such  a  training  of 
the  aesthetic  sense  as  days  among  the  great  buildings 
and  nights  on  the  lagoons  have  brought  to  millions 


AT  THE  WORLD'S  FAIR  359 

of  our  people.  The  teachability  of  the  common 
American  is  almost  pathetic.  One  building  was 
always  crowded  —  the  Fine  Arts  Building ;  yet  great 
pictures  were  the  one  thing  exhibited  with  which 
Americans  have  hitherto  had  little  or  no  acquaintance. 
This  beauty,  connected  essentially  with  the  feminine 
side  of  life,  will  hereafter,  through  the  influence  of 
the  Fair,  become  a  more  usual  possession  of  us  all. 

If  such  are  the  permanent  gains  for  character  which 
women  in  common  with  men,  yet  even  more  than 
they,  have  derived  from  the  Fair,  there  remain  to  be 
considered  certain  helps  which  have  been  brought 
to  women  in  some  of  their  most  distinctive  occupa- 
tions. Of  course  they  have  had  here  an  opportunity 
to  compare  the  different  kinds  of  sewing-machines, 
pianos,  type-writers,  telegraphs,  clothes-wringers, 
stoves,  and  baby-carriages,  and  no  doubt  they  will 
do  their  future  work  with  these  complicated  engines 
more  effectively  because  of  such  comparative  study. 
But  there  are  three  departments  which  ancestral 
usage  has  especially  consecrated  to  women,  and  to 
intelligent  methods  in  each  of  these  the  Fair  has  given 
a  mighty  impulse.  These  three  departments  are  the 
care  of  the  home,  the  care  of  the  young,  and  the  care 
of  the  sick,  the  poor,  and  the  depraved. 

At  Philadelphia  in  1876  Vienna  bread  was  made 
known,  and  the  native  article,  sodden  with  saleratus, 
which  up  to  that  time  had  desolated  the  country, 


360  WOMEN'S  EDUCATION 

began  to  disappear.  The  results  in  cookery  from  the 
Chicago  Exhibition  will  be  wider.  They  touch  the 
kitchen  with  intelligence  at  more  points.  Where 
tradition  has  reigned  unquestioned,  science  is  be- 
ginning to  penetrate,  and  we  are  no  longer  allowed 
to  eat  without  asking  why  and  what.  This  new 
"domestic  science"  —threatening  word — was  set 
forth  admirably  in  the  Rumford  Kitchen,  where  a 
capital  thirty-cent  luncheon  was  served  every  day, 
compounded  of  just  those  ingredients  which  the 
human  frame  could  be  djemonstrated  to  require. 
The  health-food  companies,  too,  arrayed  their  appe- 
tizing wares.  Workingmen's  homes  showed  on  how 
small  a  sum  a  family  could  live,  and  live  well.  Arrange- 
ments for  sterilizing  water  and  milk  were  there, 
Atkinson  cookers,  gas  and  kerosene  stoves.  The 
proper  sanitation  of  the  home  was  taught,  and  boards 
of  health  turned  out  to  the  plain  gaze  of  the  world 
their  inquisitorial  processes.  Numberless  means  of 
increasing  the  health,  ease,  and  happiness  of  the 
household  with  the  least  expenditure  of  time  and 
money  were  here  studied  by  crowds  of  despairing 
housekeepers.  Many,  no  doubt,  were  bewildered ;  but 
many,  too,  went  away  convinced  that  the  most  ancient 
employment  of  women  was  rising  to  the  dignity  and 
attractiveness  of  a  learned  profession. 

WTien  it  is  remembered  that  nine  tenths  of  the 
teachers  of  elementary  schools  are  women,  it  can  be 


AT  THE  WORLD'S  FAIR  361 

seen  how  important  for  them  was  the  magnificent 
educational  exhibit.  Here  could  be  studied  all  that 
the  age  counts  best  in  kindergarten,  primary,  gram- 
mar, high  and  normal  schools,  and  in  all  the  varieties 
of  training  in  cookery,  sewing,  dressmaking,  manual 
training,  drawing,  painting,  carving.  Many  of  the 
exhibitors  showed  great  skill  in  making  their  methods 
apprehensible  to  the  stranger. 

And  then  there  were  the  modes  of  bodily  training, 
and  the  lamentable  image  of  the  misformed  average 
girl ;  and  in  the  children's  building  classes  could  ac- 
tually be  seen  engaged  in  happy  exercise,  and  close 
at  hand  appliances  for  the  nursery  and  the  play- 
ground. Nor  in  the  enlarged  appliances  for  woman's 
domestic  life  must  those  be  omitted  which  tell  how 
cheaply  and  richly  the  girl  may  now  obtain  a  college 
training  like  her  brother,  and  become  as  intelligent 
as  he.  No  woman  went  away  from  the  educational 
exhibits  of  the  Fair  in  the  belief  that  woman's  sphere 
was  necessarily  narrow. 

There  is  no  need  to  dilate  on  the  light  shed  by  the 
Fair  upon  problems  of  sickness,  poverty,  and  crime. 
Everybody  knows  that  nothing  so  complete  had  been 
seen  before.  The  Anthropological  Building  was  a 
museum  of  these  subjects,  and  scattered  in  other 
parts  of  the  Fair  was  much  to  interest  the  puzzled 
and  sympathetic  soul.  One  could  find  out  what  an 
ideal  hospital  was  like,  and  how  its  service  and  appli- 


362  WOMEN'S  EDUCATION 

ances  should  be  ordered.  One  studied  under  com- 
petent teachers  the  care  of  the  dependent  and  delin- 
quent classes.  One  learned  to  distinguish  surface 
charity  from  sound.  As  men  grow  busier  and  wo- 
men more  competent,  the  guidance  of  philanthropy 
passes  continually  more  and  more  into  the  gentler 
hands.  Women  serve  largely  on  boards  of  hospitals, 
prisons,  charities,  and  reforms,  and  urgently  feel  the 
need  of  ampler  knowledge.  The  Fair  did  much  to 
show  them  ways  of  obtaining  it. 

Such  are  the  permanent  results  of  the  Fair  most 
likely  to  affect  women.  They  fall  into  three  classes : 
the  proofs  women  have  given  of  their  independent 
power,  their  ability  to  organize  and  to  work  toward 
a  distant,  difficult,  and  complex  end ;  the  enlargement 
of  their  outlook,  manifesting  itself  in  a  new  sense  of 
membership  in  a  nation,  a  more  willing  obedience 
to  law,  and  a  higher  appreciation  of  beauty;  and, 
lastly,  the  direct  assistance  given  to  women  in  their 
more  characteristic  employments  of  housekeeping, 
teaching,  and  ministering  to  the  afflicted.  That  these 
are  all,  or  even  the  most  important,  results  which  each 
woman  will  judge  she  has  obtained,  is  not  pretended. 
Everybody  saw  at  the  Fair  something  which  brought 
to  individual  him  or  her  a  gain  incomparable. 

And,  after  all,  the  greatest  thing  was  the  total, 
glittering,  murmurous,  restful,  magical,  evanescent 
Fair  itself,  seated  by  the  blue  waters,  wearing  the 


AT  THE   WORLD'S   FAIR  363 

five  crowns,  served  by  novel  boatmen,  and  with  the  lap 
so  full  of  treasure  that  as  piece  by  piece  it  was  held  up, 
it  shone,  was  wondered  at,  and  was  lost  again  in  the 
pile.  This  amazing  spectacle  will  flash  for  years 
upon  the  inward  eye  of  our  people,  and  be  a  joy  of 
their  solitude. 


XVI 

WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE? 

To  a  largely  increasing  number  of  young  girls  col- 
lege doors  are  opening  every  year.  Every  year  adds 
to  the  number  of  men  who  feel  as  a  friend  of  mine, 
a  successful  lawyer  in  a  great  city,  felt  when  in  talk- 
ing of  the  future  of  his  four  little  children  he  said, 
"  For  the  two  boys  it  is  not  so  serious,  but  I  lie  down 
at  night  afraid  to  die  and  leave  my  daughters  only 
a  bank  account."  Year  by  year,  too,  the  experiences 
of  life  are  teaching  mothers  that  happiness  does  not 
necessarily  come  to  their  daughters  when  accounts 
are  large  and  banks  are  sound,  but  that  on  the  con- 
trary they  take  grave  risks  when  they  trust  every- 
thing to  accumulated  wealth  and  the  chance  of  a 
happy  marriage.  Our  American  girls  themselves 
are  becoming  aware  that  they  need  the  stimulus,  the 
discipline,  the  knowledge,  the  interests  of  the  college 
in  addition  to  the  school,  if  they  are  to  prepare  them- 
selves for  the  most  serviceable  lives. 

But  there  are  still  parents  who  say,  "There  is 
no  need  that  my  daughter  should  teach;  then  why 
should  she  go  to  college  ?"  I  will  not  reply  that  col- 
lege training  is  a  life  insurance  for  a  girl,  a  pledge 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE  365 

that  she  possesses  the  disciplined  ability  to  earn  a 
living  for  herself  and  others  in  case  of  need;  for  I 
prefer  to  insist  on  the  importance  of  giving  every  girl, 
no  matter  what  her  present  circumstances,  a  special 
training  in  some  one  thing  by  which  she  can  render 
society  service,  not  of  amateur  but  of  expert  sort, 
and  service  too  for  which  it  will  be  willing  to  pay  a 
price.  The  number  of  families  will  surely  increase 
who  will  follow  the  example  of  an  eminent  banker 
whose  daughters  have  been  given  each  her  specialty. 
One  has  chosen  music,  and  has  gone  far  with  the 
best  masters  in  this  country  and  in  Europe,  so  far  that 
she  now  holds  a  high  rank  among  musicians  at  home 
and  abroad.  Another  has  taken  art;  and  has  not 
been  content  to  paint  pretty  gifts  for  her  friends,  but 
in  the  studios  of  New  York,  Munich,  and  Paris  she 
has  won  the  right  to  be  called  an  artist,  and  in  her 
studio  at  home  to  paint  portraits  which  have  a  mar- 
ket value.  A  third  has  proved  that  she  can  earn  her 
living,  if  need  be,  by  her  exquisite  jellies,  preserves, 
and  sweetmeats.  Yet  the  house  in  the  mountains, 
the  house  by  the  sea,  and  the  friends  in  the  city  are 
not  neglected,  nor  are  these  young  women  found 
less  attractive  because  of  their  special  accomplish- 
ments. 

While  it  is  not  true  that  all  girls  should  go  to  col- 
lege any  more  than  that  all  boys  should  go,  it  is 
nevertheless  true  that  they  should  go  in  greater  num- 


366  WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

bers  than  at  present.  They  fail  to  go  because  they, 
their  parents,  and  their  teachers,  do  not  see  clearly 
the  personal  benefits  distinct  from  the  commercial 
value  of  a  college  training.  I  wish  here  to  discuss 
these  benefits,  these  larger  gifts  of  the  college  life,  — 
what  they  may  be,  and  for  whom  they  are  waiting. 
It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  many  girls  are  totally 
unfitted  by  home  and  school  life  for  a  valuable  col- 
lege course.  These  joys  and  successes,  these  high 
interests  and  friendships,  are  not  for  the  self-con- 
scious and  nervous  invalid,  nor  for  her  who  in  the 
exuberance  of  youth  recklessly  ignores  the  laws  of 
a  healthy  life.  The  good  society  of  scholars  and  of 
libraries  and  laboratories  has  no  place  and  no  at- 
traction for  her  who  finds  no  message  in  Plato,  no 
beauty  in  mathematical  order,  and  who  never  longs 
to  know  the  meaning  of  the  stars  over  her  head  or 
the  flowers  under  her  feet.  Neither  will  the  finer 
opportunities  of  college  life  appeal  to  one  who,  until 
she  is  eighteen  (is  there  such  a  girl  in  this  country?), 
has  felt  no  passion  for  the  service  of  others,  no  desire 
to  know  if  through  history,  or  philosophy,  or  any 
study  of  the  laws  of  society,  she  can  learn  why  the 
world  is  so  sad,  so  hard,  so  selfish  as  she  finds  it,  even 
when  she  looks  upon  it  from  the  most  sheltered  life. 
No,  the  college  cannot  be,  should  not  try  to  be,  a 
substitute  for  the  hospital,  reformatory,  or  kinder- 
garten. To  do  its  best  work  it  should  be  organized 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE  367 

for  the  strong,  not  for  the  weak ;  for  the  high-minded, 
self-controlled,  generous,  and  courageous  spirits, 
not  for  the  indifferent,  the  dull,  the  idle,  or  those 
who  are  already  forming  their  characters  on  the 
amusement  theory  of  life.  All  these  perverted  young 
people  may,  and  often  do,  get  large  benefit  and  in- 
vigoration,  new  ideals,  and  unselfish  purposes  from 
their  four  years'  companionship  with  teachers  and 
comrades  of  a  higher  physical,  mental,  and  moral 
stature  than  their  own.  I  have  seen  girls  change  so 
much  in  college  that  I  have  wondered  if  their  friends 
at  home  would  know  them,  —  the  voice,  the  carriage, 
the  unconscious  manner,  all  telling  a  story  of  new 
tastes  and  habits  and  loves  and  interests,  that  had 
wrought  out  in  very  truth  a  new  creature.  Yet  in 
spite  of  this  I  have  sometimes  thought  that  in  college 
more  than  elsewhere  the  old  law  holds,  "To  him 
that  hath  shall  be  given  and  he  shall  have  abundance, 
but  from  him  who  hath  not  shall  be  taken  away  even 
that  which  he  seemeth  to  have."  For  it  is  the  young 
life  which  is  open  and  prepared  to  receive  which 
obtains  the  gracious  and  uplifting  influences  of 
college  days.  What,  then,  for  such  persons  are  the 
rich  and  abiding  rewards  of  study  in  college  oif 
university  ? 

Preeminently  the  college  is  a  place  of  education. 
That  is  the  ground  of  its  being.  We  go  to  college  to 
know,  assured  that  knowledge  is  sweet  and  power- 


368  WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

ful,  that  a  good  education  emancipates  the  mind 
and  makes  us  citizens  of  the  world.  No  college  which 
does  not  thoroughly  educate  can  be  called  good,  no 
matter  what  else  it  does.  No  student  who  fails  to 
get  a  little  knowledge  on  many  subjects,  and  much 
knowledge  on  some,  can  be  said  to  have  succeeded, 
whatever  other  advantages  she  may  have  found  by 
the  way.  It  is  a  beautiful  and  significant  fact  that 
in  all  times  the  years  of  learning  have  been  also  the 
years  of  romance.  Those  who  love  girls  and  boys 
pray  that  our  colleges  may  be  homes  of  sound  learn- 
ing, for  knowledge  is  the  condition  of  every  college 
blessing.  "Let  no  man  incapable  of  mathematics 
enter  here,"  Plato  is  reported  to  have  inscribed  over 
his  Academy  door.  "  Let  no  one  to  whom  hard  study 
is  repulsive  hope  for  anything  from  us,"  American 
colleges  might  paraphrase.  Accordingly  in  my  talk 
to-day  I  shall  say  little  of  the  direct  benefits  of 
knowledge  which  the  college  affords.  These  may  be 
assumed.  It  is  on  their  account  that  one  knocks  at 
the  college  door.  But  seeking  this  first,  a  good  many 
other  things  are  added.  I  want  to  point  out  some 
of  these  collateral  advantages  of  going  to  college,  or 
rather  to  draw  attention  to  some  of  the  many  forms 
in  which  the  winning  of  knowledge  presents  itself. 

The  first  of  these  is  happiness.  Everybody  wants 
"a  good  time,"  especially  every  girl  in  her  teens. 
A  good  time,  it  is  true,  does  not  always  in  these  years 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE  369 

mean  what  it  will  mean  by  and  by,  any  more  than  the 
girl  of  eighteen  plays  with  the  doll  which  entranced 
the  child  of  eight.  It  takes  some  time  to  discover 
that  work  is  the  best  sort  of  play,  and  some  people 
never  discover  it  at  all.  But  when  mothers  ask  such 
questions  as  these :  "  How  can  I  make  my  daughter 
happy?"  "How  can  I  give  her  the  best  society?" 
"How  can  she  have  a  good  time?"  the  answer  in 
most  cases  is  simple.  Send  her  to  college  —  to  al- 
most any  college.  Send  her  because  there  is  no  other 
place  where  between  eighteen  and  twenty-two  she 
is  so  likely  to  have  a  genuinely  good  time.  Merely 
for  good  times,  for  romance,  for  society,  college  life 
offers  unequalled  opportunities.  Of  course  no  idle 
person  can  possibly  be  happy,  even  for  a  day,  nor. 
she  who  makes  a  business  of  trying  to  amuse  herself. 
For  full  happiness,  though  its  springs  are  within, 
we  want  health  and  friends  and  work  and  objects  of 
aspiration.  "  We  live  by  admiration,  hope,  and  love," 
says  Wordsworth.  The  college  abounds  in  all  three. 
In  the  college  time  new  powers  are  sprouting,  and 
intelligence,  merriment,  truthfulness,  and  generosity 
are  more  natural  than  the  opposite  qualities  often 
become  in  later  years.  An  exhilarating  atmosphere 
pervades  the  place.  We  who  are  in  it  all  the  time 
feel  that  we  live  at  the  fountain  of  perpetual  youth, 
and  those  who  take  but  a  four  years'  bath  in  it  be- 
come more  cheerful,  strong,  and  full  of  promise  than 


370  WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

they  are  ever  likely  to  find  themselves  again;  for  a 
college  is  a  kind  of  compendium  of  the  things  that 
most  men  long  for.  It  is  usually  planted  in  a  beau- 
tiful spot,  the  charm  of  trees  and  water  being  added 
to  stately  buildings  and  stimulating  works  of  art. 
Venerable  associations  of  the  past  hallow  its  halls. 
Leaders  in  the  stirring  world  of  to-day  return  at  each 
Commencement  to  share  the  fresh  life  of  the  new 
class.  Books,  pictures,  music,  collections,  appliances 
in  every  field,  learned  teachers,  mirthful  friends,  ath- 
letics for  holidays,  the  best  words  of  the  best  men 
for  holy  days,  —  all  are  here.  No  wonder  that  men 
look  back  upon  their  college  life  as  upon  halcyon 
days,  the  romantic  period  of  youth.  No  wonder  that 
Dr.  Holmes's  poems  to  his  Harvard  classmates  find 
an  echo  in  college  reunions  everywhere;  and  gray- 
haired  men,  who  outside  the  narrowing  circle  of 
home  have  not  heard  their  first  names  for  years,  re- 
main Bill  and  Joe  and  John  and  George  to  college 
comrades,  even  if  unseen  for  more  than  a  generation. 
Yet  a  girl  should  go  to  college  not  merely  to  obtain 
four  happy  years,  but  to  make  a  second  gain,  which 
is  often  overlooked,  and  is  little  understood  even 
,,  when  perceived ;  I  mean  a  gain  in  health.  The  old 
notion  that  low  vitality  is  a  matter  of  course  with 
women ;  that  to  be  delicate  is  a  mark  of  superior  re- 
finement, especially  in  well-to-do  families ;  that  sick- 
ness is  a  dispensation  of  Providence,  —  these  notions 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE  371 

meet  with  no  acceptance  in  college.  Years  ago  I  saw 
in  the  mirror  frame  of  a  college  freshman's  room 
this  little  formula:  "Sickness  is  carelessness,  care- 
lessness is  selfishness,  and  selfishness  is  sin."  And 
I  have  often  noticed  among  college  girls  an  air  of 
humiliation  and  shame  when  obliged  to  confess  a 
lack  of  physical  vigor,  as  if  they  were  convicted  of 
managing  life  with  bad  judgment,  or  of  some  moral 
delinquency.  With  the  spreading  scientific  convic- 
tion that  health  is  a  matter  largely  under  each  per- 
son's control,  that  even  inherited  tendencies  to  dis- 
ease need  not  be  allowed  to  run  their  riotous  course 
unchecked,  there  comes  an  earnest  purpose  to  be 
strong  and  free.  Fascinating  fields  of  knowledge 
are  waiting  to  be  explored;  possibilities  of  doing, 
as  well  as  of  knowing,  are  on  every  side;  new  and 
dear  friendships  enlarge  and  sweeten  dreams  of  fu- 
ture study  and  work,  and  the  young  student  cannot 
afford  quivering  nerves  or  small  lungs  or  an  aching 
head  any  more  than  bad  taste,  rough  manners,  or 
a  weak  will.  Handicapped  by  inheritance  or  bad 
training,  she  finds  the  plan  of  college  life  itself  her 
supporter  and  friend.  The  steady,  long-continued 
routine  of  mental  work,  physical  exercise,  recreation, 
and  sleep,  the  simple  and  wholesome  food,  in  place 
of  irregular  and  unstudied  diet,  work  out  salvation 
for  her.  Instead  of  being  left  to  go  out  of  doors  when 
she  feels  like  it,  the  regular  training  of  the  gymnasium, 


372  WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

the  boats  on  lake  and  river,  the  tennis  court,  the  golf 
links,  the  basket  ball,  the  bicycle,  the  long  walk 
among  the  woods  in  search  of  botanical  or  geological 
specimens,  —  all  these  and  many  more  call  to  the 
busy  student,  until  she  realizes  that  they  have  their 
rightful  place  in  every  well-ordered  day  of  every 
month.  So  she  learns,  little  by  little,  that  buoyant 
health  is  a  precious  possession  to  be  won  and  kept. 
It  is  significant  that  already  statistical  investigation 
in  this  country  and  in  England  shows  that  the  stand- 
ard of  health  is  higher  among  the  women  who  hold 
college  degrees  than  among  any  other  equal  number 
of  the  same  age  and  class.  And  it  is  interesting  also 
to  observe  to  what  sort  of  questions  our  recent  girl 
graduates  have  been  inclined  to  devote  attention. 
They  have  been  largely  the  neglected  problems  of 
little  children  and  their  health,  of  home  sanitation, 
of  food  and  its  choice  and  preparation,  of  domestic 
service,  of  the  cleanliness  of  schools  and  public  build- 
ings. Colleges  for  girls  are  pledged  by  their  very  con- 
stitution to  make  persistent  war  on  the  water  cure, 
the  nervine  retreat,  the  insane  asylum,  the  hospital, 
—  those  bitter  fruits  of  the  emotional  lives  of  thou- 
sands of  women.  "  I  can  never  afford  a  sick  head- 
ache again,  life  is  so  interesting  and  there  is  so 
much  to  do,"  a  delicate  girl  said  to  me  at  the  end  of 
her  first  college  year.  And  while  her  mother  was  in 
a  far-off  invalid  retreat,  she  undertook  the  battle 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE  373 

against  fate  with  the  same  intelligence  and  courage 
which  she  put  into  her  calculus  problems  and  her 
translations  of  Sophocles.  Her  beautiful  home  and 
her  rosy  and  happy  children  prove  the  measure  of 
her  hard-won  success.  Formerly  the  majority  of 
physicians  had  but  one  question  for  the  mother 
of  the  nervous  and  delicate  girl,  "Does  she  go  to 
school ?"  And  only  one  prescription,  "Take  her  out 
of  school."  Never  a  suggestion  as  to  suppers  of 
pickles  and  pound-cake,  never  a  hint  about  midnight 
dancing  and  hurried  daytime  ways.  But  now  the 
sensible  doctor  asks,  "  What  are  her  interests  ?  What 
are  her  tastes  ?  What  are  her  habits  ?  "  And  he  finds 
new  interests  for  her,  and  urges  the  formation  of 
out-of-door  tastes  and  steady  occupation  for  the  mind, 
in  order  to  draw  the  morbid  girl  from  herself  into 
the  invigorating  world  outside.  This  the  college  does 
largely  through  its  third  gift  of  friendship. 

Until  a  girl  goes  away  from  home  to  school  or  col- 
lege, her  friends  are  chiefly  chosen  for  her  by  cir- 
cumstances. Her  young  relatives,  her  neighbors  in 
the  same  street,  those  who  happen  to  go  to  the  same 
school  or  church,  —  these  she  makes  her  girlish 
intimates.  She  goes  to  college  with  the  entire  con- 
viction, half  unknown  to  herself,  that  her  father's 
political  party  contains  all  the  honest  men,  her  mo- 
ther's social  circle  all  the  true  ladies,  her  church  all 
the  real  saints  of  the  community.  And  the  smaller 


'374  WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

the  town,  the  more  absolute  is  her  belief.  But  in  col- 
lege she  finds  that  the  girl  who  earned  her  scholarship 
in  the  village  school  sits  beside  the  banker's  daugh- 
ter; the  New  England  farmer's  child  rooms  next  the 
heiress  of  a  Hawaiian  sugar  plantation;  the  daugh- 
ters of  the  opposing  candidates  in  a  sharply  fought 
election  have  grown  great  friends  in  college  boats 
and  laboratories ;  and  before  her  diploma  is  won  she 
realizes  how  much  richer  a  world  she  lives  in  than 
she  ever  dreamed  of  at  home.  The  wealth  that  lies 
in  differences  has  dawned  upon  her  vision.  It  is  only 
when  the  rich  and  poor  sit  down  together  that  either 
can  understand  how  the  Lord  is  the  Maker  of  them 
all. 

To-day  above  all  things  we  need  the  influence  of 
men  and  women  of  friendliness,  of  generous  nature, 
of  hospitality  to  new  ideas,  in  short,  of  social  im- 
agination. But  instead,  we  find  each  political  party 
bitterly  calling  the  other  dishonest,  each  class  sus- 
picious of  the  intentions  of  the  other,  and  in  social 
life  the  pettiest  standards  of  conduct.  Is  it  not 
well  for  us  that  the  colleges  all  over  the  country 
still  offer  to  their  fortunate  students  a  society  of 
the  most  democratic  sort,  —  one  in  which  a  father's 
money,  a  mother's  social  position,  can  assure  no 
distinction  and  make  no  close  friends  ?  Here  ca- 
pacity of  every  kind  counts  for  its  full  value.  Here 
enthusiasm  waits  to  make  heroes  of  those  who  can 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE  375 

lead.  Here  charming  manners,  noble  character, 
amiable  temper,  scholarly  power,  find  their  full  op- 
portunity and  inspire  such  friendships  as  are  seldom 
made  afterward.  I  have  forgotten  my  chemistry, 
and  my  classical  philology  cannot  bear  examination ; 
but  all  round  the  world  there  are  men  and  women 
at  work,  my  intimates  of  college  days,  who  have  made 
the  wide  earth  a  friendly  place  to  me.  Of  every  creed, 
of  every  party,  in  far-away  places  and  in  near,  the 
thought  of  them  makes  me  more  courageous  in  duty 
and  more  faithful  to  opportunity,  though  for  many 
years  we  may  not  have  had  time  to  write  each  other  a 
letter.  The  basis  of  all  valuable  and  enduring  friend- 
ships is  not  accident  or  juxtaposition,  but  tastes,  in- 
terests, habits,  work,  ambitions.  It  is  for  this  reason 
that  to  college  friendship  clings  a  romance  entirely 
its  own.  One  of  the  friends  may  spend  her  days 
in  the  laboratory,  eagerly  chasing  the  shy  facts  that 
hide  beyond  the  microscope's  fine  vision,  and  the  other 
may  fill  her  hours  and  her  heart  with  the  poets  and 
the  philosophers;  one  may  steadfastly  pursue  her 
way  toward  the  command  of  a  hospital,  and  the  other 
toward  the  world  of  letters  and  of  art;  these  diver- 
gences constitute  no  barrier,  but  rather  an  aid  to  the 
fulness  of  friendship.  And  the  fact  that  one  goes  in  a 
simple  gown  which  she  has  earned  and  made  herself, 
and  the  other  lives  when  at  home  in  a  merchant's 
modern  palace  —  what  has  that  to  do  with  the  things 


376  WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

the  girls  care  about  and  the  dreams  they  talk  over  in 
the  walk  by  the  river  or  the  bicycle  ride  through  coun- 
try roads?  If  any  young  man  to-day  goes  through 
Harvard  lonely,  neglected,  unfriended,  if  any  girl 
lives  solitary  and  wretched  in  her  life  at  Welles- 
ley,  it  is  their  own  fault.  It  must  be  because  they 
are  suspicious,  unfriendly,  or  disagreeable  them- 
selves. Certainly  it  is  true  that  in  the  associations 
of  college  life,  more  than  in  any  other  that  the  coun- 
try can  show,  what  is  extraneous,  artificial,  and  tem- 
porary falls  away,  and  the  every-day  relations  of  life 
and  work  take  on  a  character  that  is  simple,  natural, 
genuine.  And  so  it  comes  about  that  the  fourth  gift 
of  college  life  is  ideals  of  personal  character. 

To  some  people  the  shaping  ideals  of  what  char- 
acter should  be,  often  held  unconsciously,  come  from 
the  books  they  read;  but  to  the  majority  they  are 
given  by  the  persons  whom  they  most  admire  before 
they  are  twenty  years  old.  The  greatest  thing  any 
friend  or  teacher,  either  in  school  or  college,  can  do 
for  a  student  is  to  furnish  him  with  a  personal  ideal. 
The  college  professors  who  transformed  me  through 
my  acquaintance  with  them  —  ah,  they  were  few, 
and  I  am  sure  I  did  not  have  a  dozen  conversations 
with  them  outside  their  classrooms  —  gave  me,  each 
in  his  different  way,  an  ideal  of  character,  of  conduct, 
of  the  scholar,  the  leader,  of  which  they  and  I  were 
totally  unconscious  at  the  time.  For  many  years  I 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE  377 

have  known  that  my  study  with  them,  no  matter 
whether  of  philosophy  or  of  Greek,  of  mathematics 
or  history  or  English,  enlarged  my  notions  of  life, 
uplifted  my  standards  of  culture,  and  so  inspired  me 
with  new  possibilities  of  usefulness  and  of  happiness. 
Not  the  facts  and  theories  that  I  learned  so  much  as 
the  men  who  taught  me,  gave  this  inspiration.  The 
community  at  large  is  right  in  saying  that  it  wants  the 
personal  influence  of  professors  on  students,  but  it  is 
wholly  wrong  in  assuming  that  this  precious  influence 
comes  from  frequent  meetings  or  talks  on  miscellane- 
ous subjects.  There  is  quite  as  likely  to  be  a  quicken- 
ing force  in  the  somewhat  remote  and  mysterious 
power  of  the  teacher  who  devotes  himself  to  amass- 
ing treasures  of  scholarship,  or  to  patiently  work- 
ing out  the  best  methods  of  teaching;  who  standing 
somewhat  apart,  still  remains  an  ideal  of  the  Chris- 
tian scholar,  the  just,  the  courteous  man  or  woman. 
To  come  under  the  influence  of  one  such  teacher  is 
enough  to  make  college  life  worth  while.  A  young 
man  who  came  to  Harvard  with  eighty  cents  in  his 
pocket,  and  worked  his  way  through,  never  a  high 
scholar,  and  now  in  a  business  which  looks  very 
commonplace,  told  me  the  other  day  that  he  would 
not  care  to  be  alive  if  he  had  not  gone  to  college. 
His  face  flushed  as  he  explained  how  different  his 
days  would  have  been  if  he  had  not  known  two  of 
his  professors.  "Do  you  use  your  college  studies 


378  WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

in  your  business?"  I  asked.  "Oh,  no!"  he  an- 
swered. "  But  I  am  another  man  in  doing  the  busi- 
ness ;  and  when  the  day's  work  is  done  I  live  another 
life  because  of  my  college  experiences.  The  business 
and  I  are  both  the  better  for  it  every  day."  How 
many  a  young  girl  has  had  her  whole  horizon  ex- 
tended by  the  changed  ideals  she  gained  in  college ! 
Yet  this  is  largely  because  the  associations  and  studies 
there  are  likely  to  give  her  permanent  interests  — 
the  fifth  and  perhaps  the  greatest  gift  of  college  life 
of  which  I  shall  speak. 

The  old  fairy  story  which  charmed  us  in  child- 
hood ended  with  "  And  they  were  married  and  lived 
happy  ever  after."  It  conducted  to  the  altar,  hav- 
ing brought  the  happy  pair  through  innumerable 
difficulties,  and  left  us  with  the  contented  sense  that 
all  the  mistakes  and  problems  would  now  vanish  and 
life  be  one  long  day  of  unclouded  bliss.  I  have  seen 
devoted  and  intelligent  mothers  arrange  their  young 
daughters'  education  and  companionships  precisely 
on  this  basis.  They  planned  as  if  these  pretty  and 
charming  girls  were  going  to  live  only  twenty  or 
twenty-five  years  at  the  utmost,  and  had  consequently 
no  need  of  the  wealthy  interests  that  should  round 
out  the  fullgrown  woman's  stature,  making  her 
younger  in  feeling  at  forty  than  at  twenty,  and  more 
lovely  and  admired  at  eighty  than  at  either. 

Emerson  in  writing  of  beauty  declares  that  "  the 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE  379 

secret  of  ugliness  consists  not  in  irregular  outline, 
but  in  being  uninteresting.  We  love  any  forms,  how- 
ever ugly,  from  which  great  qualities  shine.  If  com- 
mand, eloquence,  art,  or  invention  exists  in  the  most 
deformed  person,  all  the  accidents  that  usually  dis- 
please, please,  and  raise  esteem  and  wonder  higher. 
Beauty  without  grace  is  the  head  without  the  body. 
Beauty  without  expression  tires."  Of  course  such 
considerations  can  hardly  come  with  full  force  to 
the  young  girl  herself,  who  feels  aged  at  eighteen, 
and  imagines  that  the  troubles  and  problems  of  life 
and  thought  are  hers  already.  "  Oh,  tell  me  to-night," 
cried  a  college  freshman  once  to  her  president, 
"  which  is  the  right  side  and  which  is  the  wrong  side 
of  this  Andover  question  about  eschatology  ?  "  The 
young  girl  is  impatient  of  open  questions,  and  irri- 
tated at  her  inability  to  answer  them.  Neither  can 
she  believe  that  the  first  headlong  zest  with  which  she 
throws  herself  into  society,  athletics,  into  everything 
which  comes  in  her  way,  can  ever  fail.  But  her  elders 
know,  looking  on,  that  our  American  girl,  the  com- 
rade of  her  parents  and  of  her  brothers  and  their 
friends,  brought  up  from  babyhood  in  the  eager  talk 
of  politics  and  society,  of  religious  belief,  of  pub- 
lic action,  of  social  responsibility  —  that  this  typical 
girl,  with  her  quick  sympathies,  her  clear  head,  her 
warm  heart,  her  outreaching  hands,  will  not  per- 
manently be  satisfied  or  self-respecting,  though  she 


380  WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

have  the  prettiest  dresses  and  hats  in  town,  or  the 
most  charming  of  dinners,  dances,  and  teas.  Unless 
there  comes  to  her,  and  comes  early,  the  one  chief 
happiness  of  life,  —  a  marriage  of  comradeship,  — 
she  must  face  for  herself  the  question,  "  What  shall  I 
do  with  my  life  ?  " 

I  recall  a  superb  girl  of  twenty  as  I  overtook  her 
one  winter  morning  hurrying  along  Commonwealth 
Avenue.  She  spoke  of  a  brilliant  party  at  a  friend's 
the  previous  evening.  "  But,  oh !  "  she  cried,  throw- 
ing up  her  hands  in  a  kind  of  hopeless  impatience, 
"tell  me  what  to  do.  My  dancing  days  are  over!" 
I  laughed  at  her,  "Have  you  sprained  your  ankle?" 
But  I  saw  I  had  made  a  mistake  when  she  added, 
"It  is  no  laughing  matter.  I  have  been  out  three 
years.  I  have  not  done  what  they  expected  of  me," 
with  a  flush  and  a  shrug,  "  and  there  is  a  crowd  of 
nice  girls  coming  on  this  winter ;  and  anyway,  I  am 
so  tired  of  going  to  teas  and  ball-games  and  assem- 
blies !  I  don't  care  the  least  in  the  world  for  foreign 
missions,  and,"  with  a  stamp,  "  I  am  not  going  slum- 
ming among  the  Italians.  I  have  too  much  respect 
for  the  Italians.  And  what  shall  I  do  with  the  rest  of 
my  life?  "  That  was  a  frank  statement  of  what  any 
girl  of  brains  or  conscience  feels,  with  more  or  less 
bitter  distinctness,  unless  she  marries  early,  or  has 
some  pressing  work  for  which  she  is  well  trained. 

Yet  even  if  that  which  is  the  profession  of  woman 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE  381 

par  excellence  be  hers,  how  can  she  be  perennially  // 
so  interesting  a  companion  to  her  husband  and  chil- 
dren as  if  she  had  keen  personal  tastes,  long  her  own, 
and  growing  with  her  growth  ?  Indeed,  in  that  respect 
the  condition  of  men  is  almost  the  same  as  that  of 
women.  It  would  be  quite  the  same  were  it  not  for  the 
fact  that  a  man's  business  or  profession  is  generally 
in  itself  a  means  of  growth,  of  education,  of  dignity. 
He  leans  his  life  against  it.  He  builds  his  home  in  the 
shadow  of  it.  It  binds  his  days  together  in  a  kind  of 
natural  piety,  and  makes  him  advance  in  strength 
and  nobility  as  he  "fulfils  the  common  round,  the 
daily  task."  And  that  is  the  reason  why  men  in  the 
past,  if  they  have  been  honorable  men,  have  grown 
old  better  than  women.  Men  usually  retain  their 
ability  longer,  their  mental  alertness  and  hospitality. 
They  add  fine  quality  to  fine  quality,  passing  from 
strength  to  strength  and  preserving  in  old  age  what- 
ever has  been  best  in  youth.  It  was  a  sudden  recog- 
nition of  this  fact  which  made  a  young  friend  of 
mine  say  last  winter,  "  I  am  not  going  to  parties  any 
more ;  the  men  best  worth  talking  with  are  too  old  to 
dance." 

Even  with  the  help  of  a  permanent  business  or    , 
profession,  however,  the  most  interesting  men  I  know 
are  those  who  have  an  avocation  as  well  as  a  voca- 
tion.  I  mean  a  taste  or  work  quite  apart  from  the 
business  of  life.  This  revives,  inspires,  and  cultivates 


382  WHY  GO   TO  COLLEGE 

them  perpetually.  It  matters  little  what  it  is,  if  only 
it  is  real  and  personal,  is  large  enough  to  last,  and 
possesses  the  power  of  growth.  A  young  sea-captain 
from  a  New  England  village  on  a  long  and  lonely 
voyage  falls  upon  a  copy  of  Shelley.  Appeal  is  made 
to  his  fine  but  untrained  mind,  and  the  book  of 
the  boy  poet  becomes  the  seaman's  university.  The 
wide  world  of  poetry  and  of  the  other  fine  arts  is 
opened,  and  the  Shelleyian  specialist  becomes  a  cul- 
tivated, original,  and  charming  man.  A  busy  mer- 
chant loves  flowers,  and  in  all  his  free  hours  studies 
them.  Each  new  spring  adds  knowledge  to  his  know- 
ledge, and  his  friends  continually  bring  him  their 
strange  discoveries.  With  growing  wealth  he  culti- 
vates rare  and  beautiful  plants,  and  shares  them  with 
his  fortunate  acquaintances.  Happy  the  companion 
invited  to  a  walk  or  a  drive  with  such  observant  eyes, 
such  vivid  talk !  Because  of  this  cheerful  interest  in 
flowers,  and  this  ingenious  skill  in  dealing  with  them, 
the  man  himself  is  interesting.  All  his  powers  are 
alert,  and  his  judgment  is  valued  in  public  life  and  in 
private  business.  Or  is  it  more  exact  to  say  that  be- 
cause he  is  the  kind  of  man  who  would  insist  upon 
having  such  interests  outside  his  daily  work,  he  is 
still  fresh  and  young  and  capable  of  growth  at  an 
age  when  many  other  men  are  dull  and  old  and  cer- 
tain that  the  time  of  decay  is  at  hand  ? 

There  are  two  reasons  why  women  need  to  cul- 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE  383 

tivate  these  large  and  abiding  interests  even  more 
persistently  than  men.  In  the  first  place,  they  have 
more  leisure.  They  are  indeed  the  only  leisured  class 
in  the  country,  the  only  large  body  of  persons  who 
are  not  called  upon  to  win  their  daily  bread  in  direct, 
wage-earning  ways.  As  yet,  fortunately,  few  men 
among  us  have  so  little  self-respect  as  to  idle  about 
our  streets  and  drawing-rooms  because  their  fathers 
are  rich  enough  to  support  them.  We  are  not  with- 
out our  unemployed  poor;  but  roving  tramps  and 
idle  clubmen  are  after  all  not  of  large  consequence. 
Our  serious  non-producing  classes  are  chiefly  wo- 
men. It  is  the  regular  ambition  of  the  chivalrous 
American  to  make  all  the  women  who  depend  on  him 
so  comfortable  that  they  need  do  nothing  for  them- 
selves. Machinery  has  taken  nearly  all  the  former 
occupations  of  women  out  of  the  home  into  the  shop 
and  factory.  Widespread  wealth  and  comfort,  and 
the  inherited  theory  that  it  is  not  well  for  the  woman 
to  earn  money  so  long  as  father  or  brothers  can  sup- 
port her,  have  brought  about  a  condition  of  things  in 
which  there  is  social  danger,  unless  with  the  larger 
leisure  are  given  high  and  enduring  interests.  To 
health  especially  there  is  great  danger,  for  nothing 
breaks  down  a  woman's  health  like  idleness  and  its 
resulting  ennui.  More  people,  I  am  sure,  are  broken 
down  nervously  because  they  are  bored,  than  be- 
cause they  are  overworked;  and  more  still  go  to 


384  WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

pieces  through  fussiness,  unwholesome  living,  worry 
over  petty  details,  and  the  daily  disappointments 
which  result  from  small  and  superficial  training. 
And  then,  besides  the  danger  to  health,  there  is  the 
danger  to  character.  I  need  not  dwell  on  the  under- 
mining influence  which  men  also  feel  when  occupa- 
tion is  taken  away  and  no  absorbing  private  inter- 
est fills  the  vacancy.  The  vices  of  luxurious  city  life 
are  perhaps  hardly  more  destructive  to  character 
than  is  the  slow  deterioration  of  barren  country  life. 
Though  the  conditions  in  the  two  cases  are  exactly 
opposite,  the  trouble  is  often  the  same,  —  absence 
of  noble  interests.  In  the  city  restless  idleness  organ- 
izes amusement ;  in  the  country  deadly  dulness  suc- 
ceeds daily  toil. 

But  there  is  a  second  reason  why  a  girl  should  ac- 
quire for  herself  strong  and  worthy  interests.  The 
regular  occupations  of  women  in  their  homes  are  gen- 
erally disconnected  and  of  little  educational  value,  at 
least  as  those  homes  are  at  present  conducted.  Given 
the  best  will  in  the  world,  the  daily  doing  of  house- 
hold details  becomes  a  wearisome  monotony  if  the 
mere  performance  of  them  is  all.  To  make  drudg- 
ery divine  a  woman  must  have  a  brain  to  plan  and 
eyes  to  see  how  to  "  sweep  a  room  as  to  God's  laws." 
Imagination  and  knowledge  should  be  the  hourly 
companions  of  her  who  would  make  a  fine  art  of 
each  detail  in  kitchen  and  nursery.  Too  long  has  the 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE  385 

pin  been  the  appropriate  symbol  of  the  average  wo- 
man's life  —  the  pin,  which  only  temporarily  holds  to- 
gether things  which  may  or  may  not  have  any  organic 
connection  with  one  another.  While  undoubtedly 
most  women  must  spend  the  larger  part  of  life  in  this 
modest  pin-work,  holding  together  the  little  things  of 
home  and  school  and  society  and  church,  it  is  also 
true,  that  cohesive  work  itself  cannot  be  done  well, 
even  in  humble  circumstances,  except  by  the  re- 
fined, the  trained,  the  growing  woman.  The  smallest 
village,  the  plainest  home,  give  ample  space  for  the 
resources  of  the  trained  college  woman.  And  the  rea- 
son why  such  homes  and  such  villages  are  so  often 
barren  of  grace  and  variety  is  just  because  these  fine 
qualities  have  not  ruled  them.  The  higher  graces 
of  civilization  halt  among  us;  dainty  and  finished 
ways  of  living  give  place  to  common  ways,  while 
vulgar  tastes,  slatternly  habits,  clouds  and  despond- 
ency reign  in  the  house.  Little  children  under  five 
years  of  age  die  in  needless  thousands  because  of 
the  dull,  unimaginative  women  on  whom  they  de- 
pend. Such  women  have  been  satisfied  with  just 
getting  along,  instead  of  packing  everything  they  do 
with  brains,  instead  of  studying  the  best  possible  way 
of  doing  everything  small  or  large;  for  there  is  al- 
ways a  best  way,  whether  of  setting  a  table,  of  trim- 
ming a  hat,  or  teaching  a  child  to  read.  And  this 
taste  for  perfection  can  be  cultivated ;  indeed,  it  must 


be  cultivated,  if  our  standards  of  living  are  to  be 
raised.  There  is  now  scientific  knowledge  enough, 
there  is  money  enough,  to  prevent  the  vast  majority 
of  the  evils  which  afflict  our  social  organism,  if  mere 
knowledge  or  wealth  could  avail;  but  the  greater 
difficulty  is  to  make  intelligence,  character,  good 
taste,  unselfishness  prevail. 

What,  then,  are  the  interests  which  powerfully 
appeal  to  mind  and  heart,  and  so  are  fitted  to  become 
the  strengthening  companions  of  a  woman's  life  ?  I 
shall  mention  only  three,  all  of  them  such  as  are  elabo- 
rately fostered  by  college  life.  The  first  is  the  love 
of  great  literature.  I  do  not  mean  that  use  of  books 
by  which  a  man  may  get  what  is  called  a  good  edu- 
cation and  so  be  better  qualified  for  the  battle  of  life, 
nor  do  I  mention  books  in  their  character  as  reservoirs 
of  knowledge,  books  which  we  need  Tor  special  pur- 
poses, and  which  are  no  longer  of  consequence  when 
our  purpose  with  them  is  served.  I  have  in  mind  the 
great  books,  especially  the  great  poets,  books  to  be 
adopted  as  a  resource  and  a  solace.  The  chief  rea- 
son why  so  many  people  do  not  know  how  to  make 
comrades  of  such  books  is  because  they  have  come 
to  them  too  late.  We  have  in  this  country  enormous 
numbers  of  readers,  —  probably  a  larger  number  who 
read,  and  who  read  many  hours  in  the  week,  than 
has  ever  been  known  elsewhere  in  the  world.  But 
what  do  these  millions  read  besides  the  newspapers  ? 


WHY  GO   TO  COLLEGE  387 

Possibly  a  denominational  religious  weekly  and  an- 
other journal  of  fashion  or  business.  Then  come  the 
thousands  who  read  the  best  magazines,  and  what- 
ever else  is  for  the  moment  popular  in  novels  and 
poetry  — the  last  dialect  story,  the  fashionable  poem, 
the  questionable  but  talked-of  novel.  Let  a  violent 
attack  be  made  on  the  decency  of  a  new  story, 
and  instantly,  if  only  it  is  clever,  its  author  becomes 
famous. 

But  the  fashions  in  reading  of  a  restless  race  — 
the  women  too  idle,  the  men  too  heavily  worked  — 
I  will  not  discuss  here.  Let  light  literature  be  de- 
voured by  our  populace  as  his  drug  is  taken  by  the 
opium-eater,  and  with  a  similar  narcotic  effect.  We 
can  only  seek  out  the  children,  and  hope  by  giving 
them  from  babyhood  bits  of  the  noblest  literature,  to 
prepare  them  for  the  great  opportunities  of  mature 
life.  I  urge,  therefore,  reading  as  a  mental  stimulus, 
as  a  solace  in  trouble,  a  perpetual  source  of  delight ; 
and  I  would  point  out  that  we  must  not  delay  to 
make  the  great  friendships  that  await  us  on  the 
library  shelves  until  sickness  shuts  the  door  on  the 
outer  world,  or  death  enters  the  home  and  silences 
the  voices  that  once  helped  to  make  these  friendships 
sweet.  If  Homer  and  Shakespeare  and  Wordsworth 
and  Browning  are  to  have  meaning  for  us  when  we 
need  them  most,  it  will  be  because  they  come  to  us 
as  old  familiar  friends  whose  influences  have  per- 


388  WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

meated  the  glad  and  busy  days  before.  The  last  time 
I  heard  James  Russell  Lowell  talk  to  college  girls, 
he  said,  —  for  he  was  too  ill  to  say  many  words,  — 
"I  have  only  this  one  message  to  leave  with  you.  In 
all  your  work  in  college  never  lose  sight  of  the  reason 
why  you  have  come  here.  It  is  not  that  you  may  get 
something  by  which  to  earn  your  bread,  but  that 
every  mouthful  of  bread  may  be  the  sweeter  to  your 
taste." 

And  this  is  the  power  possessed  by  the  mighty 
dead,  —  men  of  every  time  and  nation,  whose  voices 
death  cannot  silence,  who  are  waiting  even  at  the  poor 
man's  elbow,  whose  illuminating  words  may  be  had 
for  the  price  of  a  day's  work  in  the  kitchen  or  the 
street,  for  lack  of  love  of  whom  many  a  luxurious 
home  is  a  dull  and  solitary  spot,  breeding  misery  and 
vice.  Now  the  modern  college  is  especially  equipped 
to  introduce  its  students  to  such  literature.  The  li- 
brary is  at  last  understood  to  be  the  heart  of  the  col- 
lege. The  modern  librarian  is  not  the  keeper  of  books 
as  was  his  predecessor,  but  the  distributer  of  them, 
and  the  guide  to  their  resources,  proud  when  he 
increases  the  use  of  his  treasures.  Every  language, 
ancient  or  modern,  which  contains  a  literature  is  now 
taught  in  college.  Its  history  is  examined,  its  phi- 
lology, its  masterpieces,  and  more  than  ever  is  Eng- 
lish literature  studied  and  loved.  There  is  now  every 
opportunity  for  the  college  student  to  become  an 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

expert  in  the  use  of  his  own  tongue  and  pen.  What 
other  men  painfully  strive  for  he  can  enjoy  to  the  full 
with  comparatively  little  effort. 

But  there  is  a  second  invigorating  interest  to  which 
college  training  introduces  its  student.  I  mean  the 
study  of  nature,  intimacy  with  the  strange  and  beau-i> 
tiful  world  in  which  we  live.  "  Nature  never  did  be- 
tray the  heart  that  loved  her,"  sang  her  poet  and  high 
priest.  When  the  world  has  been  too  much  with  us, 
nothing  else  is  so  refreshing  to  tired  eyes  and  mind 
as  woods  and  water,  and  an  intelligent  knowledge 
of  the  life  within  them.  For  a  generation  past  there 
has  been  a  well-nigh  universal  turning  of  the  popu- 
lation toward  the  cities.  In  1840  only  nine  per  cent 
of  our  people  lived  in  cities  of  eight  thousand  inhabi- 
tants or  more.  Now  more  than  a  third  of  us  are  found 
in  cities.  But  the  electric  car,  the  telephone,  the 
bicycle,  still  keep  avenues  to  the  country  open.  Cer- 
tain it  is  that  city  people  feel  a  growing  hunger  for 
the  country,  particularly  when  grass  begins  to  grow. 
This  is  a  healthy  taste,  and  must  increase  the  general 
knowledge  and  love  of  nature.  Fortunate  are  the 
little  children  in  those  schools  whose  teachers  know 
and  love  the  world  in  which  they  live.  Their  young 
eyes  are  early  opened  to  the  beauty  of  birds  and  trees 
and  plants.  Not  only  should  we  expect  our  girls  to 
have  a  feeling  for  the  fine  sunset  or  the  wide-reach- 
ing panorama  of  field  and  water,  but  to  know  some- 


390  WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

thing  also  about  the  less  obvious  aspects  of  nature, 
its  structure,  its  methods  of  work,  and  the  endless 
diversity  of  its  parts.  No  one  can  have  read  Matthew 
Arnold's  letters  to  his  wife,  his  mother,  and  his  sis- 
ter, without  being  struck  by  the  immense  enjoyment 
he  took  throughout  his  singularly  simple  and  hard- 
working life  in  flowers  and  trees  and  rivers.  The 
English  lake  country  had  given  him  this  happy  in- 
heritance, with  everywhere  its  sound  of  running 
water  and  its  wealth  of  greenery.  There  is  a  close 
connection  between  the  marvellous  unbroken  line  of 
English  song  and  the  passionate  love  of  the  English- 
man for  a  home  in  the  midst  of  birds,  trees,  and  green 
fields. 

The  world  is  so  full  of  a  number  of  things, 
That  I  think  we  should  all  be  as  happy  as  kings, 

is  the  opinion  of  everybody  who  knows  nature  as  did 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson.  And  so  our  college  student 
may  begin  to  know  it.  Let  her  enter  the  laboratories 
and  investigate  for  herself.  Let  her  make  her  deli- 
cate experiments  with  the  blowpipe  or  the  balance; 
let  her  track  mysterious  life  from  one  hiding-place 
to  another ;  let  her  "  name  all  the  birds  without  a 
gun,"  and  make  intimates  of  flower  and  fish  and  but- 
terfly —  and  she  is  dull  indeed  if  breezy  tastes  do  not 
follow  her  through  life,  and  forbid  any  of  her  days 
to  be  empty  of  intelligent  enjoyment.  "  Keep  your 
years  beautiful;  make  your  own  atmosphere,"  was 


WHY   GO   TO  COLLEGE  391 

the  parting  advice  of  my  college  president,  himself 
a  living  illustration  of  what  he  said. 

But  it  is  a  short  step  from  the  love  of  the  complex 
and  engaging  world  in  which  we  live  to  the  love  of 
our  comrades  in  it.  Accordingly  the  third  precious^ 
interest  to  be  cultivated  by  the  college  student  is  an 
interest  in  people.  The  scholar  to-day  is  not  a  being 
who  dwells  apart  in  his  cloister,  the  monk's  succes- 
sor; he  is  a  leader  of  the  thoughts  and  conduct  of 
men.  So  the  new  subjects  which  stand  beside  the 
classics  and  mathematics  of  mediaeval  culture  are 
history,  economics,  ethics,  and  sociology.  Although 
these  subjects  are  as  yet  merely  in  the  making,  thou- 
sands of  students  are  flocking  to  their  investigation, 
and  are  going  out  to  try  their  tentative  knowledge 
in  College  Settlements  and  City  Missions  and  Chil- 
dren's Aid  Societies.  The  best  instincts  of  generous 
youth  are  becoming  enlisted  in  these  living  themes. 
And  why  should  our  daughters  remain  aloof  from 
the  most  absorbing  work  of  modern  city  life,  work 
quite  as  fascinating  to  young  women  as  to  young 
men  ?  During  many  years  of  listening  to  college  ser- 
mons and  public  lectures  in  Wellesley,  I  always 
noticed  a  quickened  attention  in  the  audience  when- 
ever the  discussion  touched  politics  or  theology. 
These  are,  after  all,  the  permanent  and  peremptory 
interests,  and  they  should  be  given  their  full  place 
in  a  healthy  and  vigorous  life. 


392  WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

But  if  that  life  includes  a  love  of  books,  of  nature, 
of  people,  it  will  naturally  turn  to  enlarged  concep- 
tions of  religion  —  my  sixth  and  last  gift  of  college 
life.  In  his  first  sermon  as  Master  of  Balliol  College, 
Dr.  Jowett  spoke  of  the  college,  "  First  as  a  place  of 
education,  secondly  as  a  place  of  society,  thirdly  as 
a  place  of  religion."  He  observed  that  "  men  of  very 
great  ability  often  fail  in  life  because  they  are  unable 
to  play  their  part  with  effect.  They  are  shy,  awk- 
ward, self-conscious,  deficient  in  manners,  faults 
which  are  as  ruinous  as  vices."  The  supreme  end  of 
college  training,  he  said,  "is  usefulness  in  after  life." 
Similarly,  when  the  city  of  Cambridge  celebrated  in 
Harvard's  Memorial  Hall  the  life  and  death  of  the 
gallant  young  ex-Governor  of  Massachusetts,  Wil- 
liam E.  Russell,  men  did  well  to  hang  above  his  por- 
trait some  wise  words  he  had  lately  said,  "Never 
forget  the  everlasting  difference  between  making  a 
living  and  making  a  life."  That  he  himself  never 
forgot ;  and  it  was  well  to  remind  citizens  and  students 
of  it,  as  they  stood  there  facing  too  the  ancient  words 
all  Harvard  men  face  when  they  take  their  college 
degrees  and  go  out  into  the  world,  "They  that  be 
wise  shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of  the  firmament, 
and  they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness  as  the  stars 
for  ever  and  ever."  Good  words  these  to  go  out  from 
college  with.  The  girls  of  Wellesley  gather  every 
morning  at  chapel  to  bow  their  heads  together  for  a 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE  393 

moment  before  they  scatter  among  the  libraries  and 
lecture  rooms  and  begin  the  experiments  of  the  new 
day.  And  always  their  college  motto  meets  the  eyes 
that  are  raised  to  its  penetrating  message,  "Not  to 
be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister."  How  many  a 
young  heart  has  loyally  responded,  "And  to  give  life 
a  ransom  for  many."  That  is  the  "  Wellesley  spirit " ; 
and  the  same  sweet  spirit  of  devout  service  has  gone 
forth  from  all  our  college  halls.  In  any  of  them  one 
may  catch  the  echo  of  Whittier's  noble  psalm,  — 

Our  Lord  and  Master  of  us  all! 

Whate'er  our  name  or  sign, 
We  own  Thy  sway,  we  hear  Thy  call, 

We  test  our  lives  by  Thine. 

That  is  the  supreme  test  of  life,  —  its  consecrated 
serviceableness.  The  Master  of  Balliol  was  right; 
the  brave  men  and  women  who  founded  our  schools 
and  colleges  were  not  wrong.  "  For  Christ  and  the 
Church"  universities  were  set  up  in  the  wilderness 
of  New  England;  for  the  large  service  of  the  state 
they  have  been  founded  and  maintained  at  public 
cost  in  every  section  of  the  country  where  men  have 
settled,  from  the  Alleghanies  across  the  prairies  and 
Rocky  Mountains  down  to  the  Golden  Gate.  Founded 
primarily  as  seats  of  learning,  their  teachers  have 
been  not  only  scientists  and  linguists,  philosophers 
and  historians,  but  men  and  women  of  holy  purposes, 
sound  patriotism,  courageous  convictions,  refined  and 


394  WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE 

noble  tastes.  Set  as  these  teachers  have  been  upon 
a  hill,  their  light  has  at  no  period  of  our  country's 
history  been  hid.  They  have  formed  a  large  factor 
in  our  civilization,  and  in  their  own  beautiful  char- 
acters have  continually  shown  us  how  to  combine 
religion  and  life,  the  ideal  and  practical,  the  human 
and  the  divine. 

Such  are  some  of  the  larger  influences  to  be  had 
from  college  life.  It  is  true  all  the  good  gifts  I  have 
named  may  be  secured  without  the  aid  of  the  college. 
We  all  know  young  men  and  women  who  have  had 
no  college  training,  who  are  as  cultivated,  rational, 
resourceful,  and  happy  as  any  people  we  know,  who 
excel  in  every  one  of  these  particulars  the  college 
graduates  about  them.  I  believe  they  often  bitterly 
regret  the  lack  of  a  college  education.  And  we  see 
young  men  and  women  going  through  college  deaf 
and  blind  to  their  great  chances  there,  and  after- 
wards curiously  careless  and  wasteful  of  the  best 
things  in  life.  While  all  this  is  true,  it  is  true  too  that 
to  the  open-minded  and  ambitious  boy  or  girl  of 
moderate  health,  ability,  self-control,  and  studious- 
ness,  a  college  course  offers  the  most  attractive,  easy, 
and  probable  way  of  securing  happiness  and  health, 
good  friends  and  high  ideals,  permanent  interests  of 
a  noble  kind,  and  large  capacity  for  usefulness  in  the 
world.  It  has  been  well  said  that  the  ability  to  see 
great  things  large  and  little  things  small  is  the  final 


WHY  GO  TO  COLLEGE  395 

test  of  education.  The  foes  of  life,  especially  of  wo- 
men's lives,  are  caprice,  wearisome  incapacity,  and 
petty  judgments.  From  these  oppressive  foes  we 
long  to  escape  to  the  rule  of  right  reason,  where  all 
things  are  possible,  and  life  becomes  a  glory  instead 
of  a  grind.  No  college,  with  the  best  teachers  and 
collections  in  the  world,  can  by  its  own  power  impart 
all  this  to  any  woman.  But  if  one  has  set  her  face  in 
that  direction,  where  else  can  she  find  so  many  hands 
reached  out  to  help,  so  many  encouraging  voices  in 
the  air,  so  many  favoring  influences  filling  the  days 
and  nights? 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


UCLA-ED/PSYCH  Library 

LB875P18I 


mill  ii'"  mi"  '•• 

L  005  625  460  0 


LB 
875 

piat 


DC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A    001  114480     5 


